Scottish Government loses £900,000 prisoner attack damages appeal

The Scottish Government has lost an appeal in a £900,000 damages action brought by a prisoner who was the victim of a racially-aggravated assault in Aberdeen’s Craiginches Prison.

Daniel Kaizer, 36, claimed the prison system failed to protect him from Keith Porter.

Mr Kaizer, from Poland, suffered a fractured skull after being attacked with a weightlifting bar in 2009.

He raised a successful action against the Scottish Government. The question of the amount of damages to be paid remained outstanding.

Ministers, who are responsible for the Scottish Prison Service, challenged the decision by a judge last year that they were liable.

But Scotland’s senior judge, the Lord President, Lord Carloway, sitting with Lord Brodie and Lord Drummond Young, rejected the challenge.

The victim said the prison system failed to protect him from his attacker after he was subjected to a threat by Porter in the gym about a week before the attack.

The murder bid victim informed a prison officer of the threat but no report was made of the incident.

Porter, 30, was briefly transferred to Barlinnie prison and appeared at the High Court in Glasgow and received a 15 year sentence for the attempted murder of another Polish national, Jaroslaw Janecak, in an attack with a mop handle.

He was then returned to Craiginches and attacked Mr Kaizer the following day “smashing me like he promised” according to the victim. He was later given a life sentence under an Order for Lifelong Restriction for the second murder bid on Mr Kaizer.

Lord Carloway said in a judgment issued yesterday that the prison officer’s failure to report the earlier threat in the gym constituted negligence. Craiginches Prison closed in 2014.