Inmate who punched prison governor gets additional sentence
PUNCHING the prison governor and then going on to head-butt another prisoner resulted in more than two years in prison for Ian Kerry Lewell.
The 46-year-old, who is an inmate at Les Nicolles, told the Royal Court that he admitted two counts of assault at the prison.
Judge Russell Finch said the assaults were serious and prison governor Dave Matthews was a public servant, who was in the front line.
The first incident happened at about 8am in February.
Lewell spotted his daughter in the prison exercise area and shouted to get her attention.
He was rebuked by the prison officer and he became upset.
He then made threats to the officer, who was pregnant.
Five minutes later Lewell was walking along a lower corridor, swearing.
Prison governor Dave Matthews was also there, as each morning he would walk the corridor to interact with prison officers and inmates.
Hearing the swearing, he turned to see who was talking and saw Lewell.
The defendant asked what he was looking at and then threw a punch at Mr Matthews, hitting the upper left side of his face.
Mr Matthews threw a blow in defence and Lewell then punched out at him several more times.
The prison officers tackled Lewell to the floor.
In the process he suffered fractures to his arm.
During the incident Mr Matthews suffered a graze to his head, while another prison officer suffered a bloody nose and sprained shoulder.
The second incident happened six weeks later.
A serving prisoner was playing cards with a group of inmates and making some noise. He had been fooling around that morning.
Lewell was carrying a black bag down some stairs and told a prison officer his fellow inmates had been making noise all night and he had not been able to sleep.
He then shouted at the inmate that he was doing his head in. He was told to calm down, but he and the inmate moved towards each other.
Then Lewell lunged forward, head-butting the prisoner in the jaw.
Defence advocate Liam Roffey said his client had mental health problems and struggled to control his temper.
He added that his client had been concerned about his daughter serving a prison sentence and had been keen to speak to her.
When this was blocked, he became angry.
He felt Mr Matthews was unsympathetic to his distress.
Lewell was sentenced to two years and two months in prison for assaulting Mr Matthews and four months in prison, consecutive, for the assault on the inmate.
These sentences will start from the conclusion of his current sentence.
