Inmate sentenced for vicious assault on prison officer

An inmate who assaulted a prison officer at Mountjoy Prison in a “determined and vicious attack” has been given a six-month sentence to run consecutive to a 10-year sentence he is currently serving.

Leon Wright (aged 22), of no fixed abode, pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to assault causing harm to Colm O’Connell at Mountjoy Prison on August 27, 2008.

Wright is currently serving a sentence for a series of crimes including robbery, hijacking, assault and threatening to kill gardaí. He is due for release in November 2011.

Garda Maura Fitzgerald told Mr Paul Carroll BL, prosecuting, that prison officer Colm O’Carroll was on duty on the landing at level A1 when Wright came up behind him and hit him under the jaw with his right hand and punched him in the face.

Mr O’Carroll fell to the ground and Wright kicked him in the head and ran away to the landing area at A2.

The injured prison officer was taken to the Mater Hospital where he received treatment for soft tissue injuries to his lip, face and hand.

The attack, Mr Carroll told Judge Patrick McCartan, left the victim “more wary in the workplace and he has since become agitated and on edge”.

Mr Cormac Quinn BL, defending, said Wright, who has been in foster care and institutions since an early age and has 79 previous convictions, received two months confinement in prison by the prison governor for the assault.

Judge McCartan said the “assault was not out of the blue. He had a grievance with the prison officer and came upon him with no prior warning.”

“But there is no doubt he has had an appalling life to date and in other circumstances the sentence would be much more,” added Judge McCartan.