Ex-prison officers given jail let-off after lying to inquiry

THREE former prison officers have been given suspended prison sentences after they lied during an internal investigation over an assault.

Joseph Wilson, 32, of Nottingham, and Daniel Botterall, 30, of Lincoln, had an inmate under restraint when colleague Dean Kirk, 31 of Derby, thumped the prisoner and kneed him to the face at Nottingham jail.

All three men - who no longer work at the prison - then lied to the internal investigation, with Botterall and Wilson not revealing Kirk’s violence.

The court heard the day before the assault the same prisoner had headbutted Kirk and threatened him.

The following day a senior officer directed the same prisoner’s cell should not be unlocked but it was.

CCTV showed the prisoner returning to his cell after having lunch and Kirk moved to shut his cell door when the inmate punched him twice in the face.

Judge Gregory Dickinson QC, the Recorder of Nottingham, said: “I don’t know for sure why he (the prisoner) did this. He didn’t cooperate with the investigation at any time; internal or the police.”

Other officers reacted to his violence to restrain him in his cell.

Later a WhatsApp group was set up “involving you and others” which was discovered, said the judge.

“To any decent person the contents of those WhatsApp messages are appalling. They are racist, they are crude, juvenile, pathetic.”

He said they revelled in the assault on the prisoner and the exchanges in the WhatsApp messages included “what I describe as an understanding that all three of you would lie to the prison investigation”.

After a trial in September, Kirk was cleared of racially aggravated common assault on a prisoner in his cell, on April 14, 2016, but found guilty on the lesser offence of common assault.

Wilson and Botterall were both found not guilty of raciallyaggravated common assault.

All three were convicted on the misconduct charge - where the prosecution alleged the defendant’s lied in the course of an internal prison investigation into the assault by Kirk.

They were sentenced at Nottingham Crown Court on Thursday.

Kirk received two months in prison for the assault and 10 months concurrently for the misconduct charge, both suspended for 18 months, and he must do 100 hours of unpaid work.

Wilson and Botterall received five months in prison, suspended for 12 months, and 50 hours of unpaid work. All defendants must pay court costs and a victim surcharge.