A prison officer has been jailed for hitting an inmate so viciously he broke his own hand.
Jack Kerrison, 27, an officer at Hull Prison, was sentenced to 18 months for punching the prisoner in the head so hard that both men needed hospital treatment.
The inmate was in his cell when Kerrison, who admitted assaulting the prisoner, causing actual bodily harm, started punching him with both fists, calling him a ‘cheeky little c***’.
Charlotte Baines, prosecuting, said: ‘Kerrison stormed into the cell, headed straight to him, lifted his right hand up and, with a clenched fist, drew it back.’
An officer estimated there were up to 10 blows during the attack on June 16 last year.
The inmate’s wound was so severe it left blood dripping onto the floor – leaving him shaken and shocked.
His cellmate had to press a towel to his head to try and stop the bleeding.
Ms Baines said: ‘The inmate could not comprehend why an officer had carried out an unprovoked attack on him when he had not done anything wrong.
‘Since the attack, he has thought about it every day and why an officer do that to an inmate.
‘He feels constantly on edge, this was a persistent assault.’
The prosecution argued the inmate did not fight back and curled up into a ball, with the victim’s cellmate claiming Kerrison had been ‘puffing himself up’ shortly before the assault to make himself look bigger.
The 27-year-old later sought to ‘concoct’ a cover up story and tried to recruit other prison officers into helping him.
He told his colleagues: ‘We need to come up with a story and stick to it. If you stick to the story, I’ll owe you.’
Kerrison later gave a false account to two senior officers and contacted others on Facebook asking them to ‘stick to the story’ so he would be ‘safe’.
Recorder Gurdial Singh argued he would be ‘failing in his public duty’ if he did not send Kerrison to jail.
Recorder Singh said: ‘You had the care and custody control of inmates. You were expected to protect and look after them.
‘You set about the complainant, sitting defenceless, and punched him in the head.
‘We simply can’t have, with impunity, prison officers attacking inmates.’
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