Court to hear action over prison knife assault again

THE SUPREME Court has directed the High Court to rehear an action by a former prisoner who was slashed in the face and body during a violent and unprovoked knife attack by a fellow inmate in Wheatfield Prison.

The three-judge court found the High Court decision on the action by Peter Creighton essentially amounted to an “unsatisfactory compromise” and did not correctly address the issues.

On that basis, it allowed the State’s appeal against the High Court’s award of €40,000 damages to Mr Creighton for part of his injuries and also upheld Mr Creighton’s cross-appeal against the rejection of his claim as he had presented it. Mr Justice Nial Fennelly, delivering the three-judge court’s decision, directed the case go back to the High Court.

Mr Creighton (31), from Clondalkin, Dublin, was serving a four-year sentence in Wheatfield Prison in Dublin when attacked on January 19th, 2003, by a fellow inmate. He was in a confined area awaiting delivery of methadone when he was the victim of what Mr Justice Fennelly described as a “sudden, violent and unprovoked attack” by a fellow prisoner. Mr Creighton suffered serious wounds to his face, stomach and flank. Released in 2006, he sued the prison and the State alleging negligence in not taking reasonable precautions for his safety and exposing him to a risk of injury.

In the High Court, Mr Justice Barry White concluded the prison authorities could not reasonably have been expected to prevent the attack. However, after recalling Mr Creighton’s key witness, former English prisons governor Roger Outram to give evidence, the judge suggested to Mr Outram, and he agreed, there should have been an additional prison officer within the area where Mr Creighton was attacked.

Mr Justice White then ruled, had there been such an additional supervising officer, there would have been an earlier intervention and less injuries. He ruled Mr Creighton would have suffered his head and facial injuries, would probably have been saved the other injuries to his flank and abdomen, and on that basis awarded €40,000 damages.

Overturning that decision, Mr Justice Fennelly said the State has a duty to take “reasonable” care of the safety of prisoners but this did not amount to a guarantee a prisoner will not be injured.

The central issue was whether the attack was due to a lack of care by the authorities insofar as a dangerous knife came into the possession of his assailant.

Mr Justice Fennelly said he could find no basis for the High Court finding of a breach of duty of care in failing to place prison officers within the units of the medical centre and among the prisoners to an extent that would have resulted in an earlier intervention.

Conflicts of evidence as to where the prisoners were located had not been resolved before the crucial evidence about having an additional supervising officer was given at the end of the case, he said. That decisive evidence was not part of Mr Creighton’s case and the High Court decision on that issue was unsatisfactory.

It would also be unfair to Mr Creighton to dispose of the case without properly considering his case – that the system of control in Wheatfield to prevent entry of dangerous knives was lax and that the area where prisoners were confined while awaiting methadone was overcrowded, the judge said.

The failure to address conflicts of evidence central to the case, including about the nature of the weapon used in the attack, which appeared to have been a Stanley blade, and about the number of prisoners in the medical centre area, meant Mr Creighton’s claim was not addressed on its merits.