A prison officer who had to give up his job after being attacked by an inmate has won the right to claim damages against the Ministry of Justice.

The incident happened after the prison officer had been involved in an exercise with other members of his team to open a cell which had been closed and barricaded by an inmate.

The operation was successful and the prison officer and a colleague then escorted the inmate to the segregation unit. The officers were not given the prisoner’s history sheet outlining his violent past.

The next day the officer was attacked without warning when he entered the prisoner’s cell. He was hit in the eye and had to give up his career in the service because of his injury. The officer later discovered that the inmate had previously been involved in 20 violent incidents including 14 involving prison staff.  

The officer claimed that he would have taken extra precautions if he had been alerted to the inmate’s record and the attack could have been avoided. However, the Ministry of Justice said the officer knew about the inmate’s violent nature from the fact that he had barricaded the cell the previous day.

The High Court found that the Ministry was negligent in not alerting him to the prisoner’s violent past. It was the Ministry’s duty to keep the officer reasonably safe and so it should have provided him with information about the inmate’s past.