Prisoner's slopping-out damages case dismissed

The first ever court action taken by an Irish prisoner for damages for slopping out of prison-cell chamber pots was dismissed today.

Judge Con O’Leary dismissed the action taken by former prisoner, Troy Cremin (aged 29), of Palmsprings, Ardarrig, Douglas, Cork, who claimed his toilet facilities in Cork Prison were "like those of a Stone Age caveman". He said he had to share a mayonnaise bucket as a chamber pot with cellmates.

Damages were claimed on several grounds. All bar one had been dismissed over the last weeks during a number of hearings of the case at Cork District Court. The only issue that was still live today was whether Cremin was entitled to damages as a result of fears he had about contracting an illness from sharing this pot.

Pearse Sreenan, barrister, for the Irish Prison Service said the higher courts had ruled in other cases that fears and anxiety were not enough for damages to be awarded and that there had to be some specific injury.

Mr Sreenan referred to cases related to asbestos and organ retention cases that were dismissed in the higher courts where people had expressed fears and anxiety but had not suffered an actionable injury.

Jerry Cronin, solicitor, for Cremin said those asbestos cases concerned people being anxious when they looked back retrospectively at their old working environments. He said Cremin suffered the anxiety there and then.

Judge O’Leary dismissed the action and awarded District Court costs against Cremin. The case may be appealed.

The Irish Prison Service welcomed the decision in what is the first case of its kind to go to full hearing in court. Other cases are being taken at Circuit Court level and have yet to be heard.

“This decision will reinforce our determination to vigorously contest the several hundred claims that have been lodged against the State,” Martin Smyth, compensation claims manager with the Irish Prison Service said today.

In the case, Cremin had also claimed he was subjected to passive smoking in a cell with five other smoking prisoners as well as sharing a large mayonnaise bucket as a chamber pot with other cellmates. He also claimed that the slopping out of pots with urine and faeces had adverse health implications.

The prison service disputed Cremin’s claims about the mayonnaise bucket but the judge believed the plaintiff on this point.

Cremin, who has a degree in law from the UK served a sentence – mainly in Cork Prison – between October 2004 and February 2005 for harassment of a neighbour. This was his third term of imprisonment.