Creighton -v- Ireland Ors, High Court,Judgment was delivered by Mr Justice White on May 25th, 2009
Judgment
A prisoner severely assaulted in Wheatfield Prison was entitled to damages of €40,000, as the prison authorities failed in their duty of care, in that if there had been a prison officer in the area in which he was assaulted, it could have been broken up earlier.
Background
The plaintiff was assaulted suddenly and without provocation by another prisoner with a blade on January 19th, 2003, suffering slashes to his face, head, back and his abdomen, leaving extensive scarring. The weapon used in the attack was never recovered.
At the time of the attack the victim was in the medical centre in the prison, waiting to receive methadone. The centre has five interconnected units, with prisoners waiting in the three central units, while methadone is dispensed to individual prisoners in the end unit. One prison officer admits the prisoners to the unit, and another verifies their entitlement to the methadone.
Discovery was made during the trial that 12 other assaults by prisoners on fellow prisoners had taken place between July 18th, 2001 and January 18th, 2003, two of them in the medical centre, one of which involved a knife.
Roger Outram, a retired prison governor from the UK, gave evidence that the defendants, Ireland and the Attorney General, the Minister for Justice and the Governor of Wheatfield Prison, had failed in their duty of care in not adequately supervising the area, especially in the light of previous assaults. He said he had never seen a prisoner so seriously injured in the course of his career.
Mr Justice White said there was no evidence before him of any risk assessment having been carried out following the previous assaults at the medical centre, or of any steps having been taken to minimise the potential exposure of inmates to assault there.
The law in relation to the duty owed by the State to people in its custody had been laid down in Muldoon -v- Ireland (1988) ,and it required the authorities to "take reasonable care", and was approved by the Supreme Court in Bates -v- Ireland and Others (1998).Other judgments had found against the plaintiffs.
Decision
Mr Justice White said it would be unreasonable to expect the prison authorities to search each and every prisoner every time he exited his cell, and they could not have been expected to have been in a position to prevent an attack on the plaintiff.
However, he also said that, given that two attacks had taken place in the medical centre within the previous six months, the failure to place a prison officer or officers within the three central units and among the prisoners was a failure in the defendants’ duty of care to the plaintiff, but only to the extent that such a presence would have resulted in an earlier intervention in, and break up of, the assault.
“Speed of intervention would have, in my view, lessened the extent to the injuries sustained by the plaintiff,” he said. It was unlikely it would have prevented the head and facial injuries, but in all probability would have prevented the injuries to his flank and abdomen. He awarded the plaintiff damages of €40,000.
The full judgment in on www.courts.ie.
Patrick Keane SC and Jim Kelly BL, instructed by Burns Nowlan, Newbridge, for the plaintiff; Gerard Clarke SC and Garnet Orange BL, instructed by the State Claims Agency, for the defendant