Guard lost it and lashed out, court told
ACorrections officer, bleeding heavily from stab wounds inflicted by an inmate, “lost control” and “reacted to violence with violence” as he lashed out in retaliation, a court has heard.
Guards Desmond Faafoi, Wiremu Paikea and Viju Devassy were all working at Auckland Prison, Paremoremo, on May 20 last year when a group of prisoners attacked them.
Faafoi was stabbed several times in the head with a shank (a makeshift knife).
While police charged the three prisoners who instigated the attack, Samuel Hutchins, Trent Wellington and Mitai Angell, the three guards were also charged.
Their Corrections officers’ trial has been playing out in the High Court at Auckland for the past two weeks and yesterday Crown prosecutor Jo Murdoch gave her closing address.
She said Faafoi “reacted to violence with violence” and as he was “pumped up with anger and adrenalin, he lost control”.
“He punched and kicked an inmate repeatedly to the point that he had
HFor video go to nzherald.co.nz to be restrained [by his fellow officers],” Murdoch said.
Faafoi is accused of assault with intent to injure for kicking Angell in the head three times.
Devassy is charged with wilfully attempting to pervert the course of justice for allegedly turning a CCTV camera away from the incident. Devassy denies turning the camera to prevent the brawl being filmed and his lawyer, Paul Borich QC, said Devassy was trying to preserve justice and “locate other rogue inmates”. As Angell was lying on the ground Paikea enters the scene, Murdoch told the jury. “About 10 . . . officers can be seen controlling prisoners Angell and Wellington,” she said.
While Angell was lying on the ground, Paikea performed a “figurefour leg lock” on the prisoner.
It was so severe, Murdoch said, it caused Angell to suffer a compound fracture to his ankle.
Paikea faces a charge of causing grievous bodily harm with reckless disregard to the prisoner.
Earlier in the trial the court was shown the CCTV footage of the incident. The video shows Wellington being wrestled by a Corrections officer near a stairwell, before Hutchins is tackled by Faafoi.
Faafoi can be seen bleeding heavily from his stab wounds.
Angell is wrestled to the ground before more Corrections officers, including Devassy, come to help restrain the prisoners.
Faafoi said he cannot remember much of the incident, a claim Murdoch told the court yesterday was based on no medical evidence.
An unknown Corrections officer can be heard during the recording saying: “Des[mond], Des, enough . . . enough” and “camera, camera”.
However, Faafoi’s defence counsel Todd Simmonds said his client had no malicious intent to injure Angell.
“Multiple blows to his head, stab wounds, cuts, abrasions, bleeding and the effect that had on him,” Simmonds said of Faafoi. “He may have lashed out [but] did he have the intent?”
The CCTV footage later shows Paikea kneeling down over the back of Angell’s legs.
The Crown alleges Paikea deliberately bent Angell’s ankle at a 90-degree angle causing the compound dislocation.
Paikea’s lawyer Aaron Perkins QC said his client accepts the injury occurred while wrestling with the inmate but rejects any criminal intent or reckless disregard.
The trio of officers were suspended after the charges were laid.
The guards’ trial is expected to conclude in the next few days. Judge
intruders had stolen it. But the injured female monkey was later found hiding in the enclosure, still frightened after the encounter.
After entering the zoo through an unsecured gate that night, Casford headed to the squirrel monkey enclosure, where the animals were asleep in a corner.
He broke through two padlocks to get into the enclosure.
“Your intention was to capture one and bring it home to your girlfriend,” the judge said during sentencing. “Your attempt was not successful. “I don’t know what happened in the squirrel monkey enclosure. The squirrel monkeys know. You say you couldn’t find them and I don’t speak squirrel. What I know is that by daybreak all the monkeys were distressed, two of them were injured, and you had a broken leg, two fractured teeth, a sprained ankle, and bruises on your back.”
None of the monkeys chose to escape through the gates Casford left open.
After pleading guilty to the burglary, Casford attended a Restorative Justice meeting with zookeepers, who said it was a blessing he was unable to catch any of the monkeys, for his sake and the monkeys’ sake.
Casford told the zookeepers he broke his leg jumping the boundary fence.
The judge said one of the monkeys continued to experience stress months after the incident.
Casford was also being sentenced yesterday for an unrelated spate of violent offending over the summer.
He had pleaded guilty to a number of incidents, including an unprovoked assault on a man waiting in his car at traffic lights, an alcohol-fuelled attack at a dairy in Westport, and assaults on a Wellington City Council community safety officer and a night shelter resident who refused to hand over cigarettes.
The judge sentenced him to two years and seven months in prison for all of the offending.