Prisoner attacks his lawyer in courtroom
A lawyer was ‘‘blindsided’’ when a high security prisoner allegedly stood up and punched him in a courtroom.
The offender was sitting beside his lawyer, Tony Grieg, when he was convicted by a judge in the Christchurch District Court on Monday for assaulting a prison officer.
‘‘[The judge] asked him to return to the dock for sentencing and he started to stand and then he just punched me,’’ Greig said.
‘‘I didn’t see it coming – I was turned away from him, he blindsided me. [I] went flying off my chair and landed on the ground.’’
Two Corrections officers wrestled the offender to the ground and he was taken away. The judge adjourned the hearing.
Greig was taken to see a nurse at the justice precinct, who put butterfly stitches around his eye.
He said the attack was ‘‘unavoidable’’.
‘‘He was unhappy with me I suppose. ‘‘If your clients really want to hit you, they’ve got plenty of opportunities to do so and you couldn’t have it any other way. You can’t not have contact with your client.
‘‘It hasn’t happened to me in 20 years. I’ve never known for it to happen to anywhere else so it’s an extremely rare event. You couldn’t change the way you do things based on one event.’’
He said he was ‘‘happy’’ with how the Ministry of Justice, Corrections and police responded.
‘‘They couldn’t have prevented it.’’ Greig was back at work yesterday, despite sporting a few bruises and stitches from Monday’s attack.
Ministry of Justice health, safety and security general manager Maeve Neilson confirmed in a statement that there had been a ‘‘security incident’’.
‘‘The defendant was restrained immediately and removed from the courtroom,’’ she said.
Christchurch Men’s Prison director Jo Harrex said in a statement three Corrections officers immediately restrained and handcuffed the prisoner.
The man was removed from the court and returned to prison. One officer sustained minor injuries and received treatment from prison medical staff on site.
A police spokeswoman confirmed the incident was reported.