Auckland prison officer on trial accused of assaulting inmate with pepper spray

The Corrections officer accused of assaulting the inmate with pepper spray has suppression through his trial in the Auckland District Court.

An Auckland Corrections officer is accused of using disproportionate force when he pepper sprayed the face of an inmate in a high-needs unit of Mt Eden prison nearly two years ago.

The man, who along with the prisoner complainant has interim name suppression, is on trial in the Auckland District Court this week. He denies assault using pepper spray as a weapon.

His lawyer Petrina Stokes said he was justified in deploying the pepper spray and was only acting in accordance with his training amid difficult circumstances.

His trial began today before Judge Nevin Dawson and a jury of six men and six women.

The alleged assault happened in the Intervention and Support Unit (ISU) of Mt Eden Corrections Facility, a section of the prison used for high-needs inmates, often those with mental health issues.

Crown prosecutor Kristy Li, in her opening address, told the jury the incident, on April 5 2022, was captured on a body camera worn by the Corrections officer, which also captured audio.

“This trial is about what the Crown says is an unlawful use of force,” Li said.

Li said the use of pepper spray arose from a dispute between the officers and the inmate over the use of a towel. She said it was “unnecessary and disproportionate to what was happening”.

That morning, the prisoner was having a shower in the ISU supervised by two Corrections officers, Li said.

He was handed two towels by the supervising officers, neither of whom was the defendant.

As the inmate left the shower, he handed one towel to an officer while the other was around his waist. He then walked to a trolley and picked up another towel to wipe his face and hair, Li said.

At this point, the man on trial, who was a senior officer, approached the prisoner and asked him to hand back the towels, but he didn’t comply, Li said.

The prosecutor told the jury ISU prisoners are not allowed to take towels to their cells because of the risk they could use them to self-harm.

Mt Eden prison houses mostly prisoners on remand.

While the prisoner did not comply with the officer’s request, he was not aggressive and merely walked back passively while three and then four guards surroundeding him, Li said.

The officer on trial yelled at the prisoner to drop to his knees or he would be pepper sprayed, Li said.

The prisoner replied that he understood.

Again the officer yelled at the prisoner to get down, before blasting pepper spray into his face, Li said.

Li said the prisoner was not a threat to himself or others.

“He was passively backing away at the time [the defendant] was yelling aggressively and loudly at him,” Li said.

The officer was charged after a major police investigation, the prosecutor said.

“The Crown case here is that the use of pepper spray … was not reasonable and it was not proportionate.”

Stokes told the jury the defence case was that the officer was justified in his actions.

“[He] was only doing his job in difficult circumstances and as he had been trained to do,” Stokes said.

On Monday afternoon, the jury was shown confronting footage of the prisoner being pepper sprayed, along with the events before and after the incident.

A Corrections officer present at the time was called as a witness. He said, and the footage corroborated, that the prisoner did not begin swinging his arms until after he was pepper sprayed.

That officer said he tried to de-escalate the situation.

Footage from the incident was captured by three CCTV cameras in the ISU along with the body camera of the officer who is on trial.

It shows the Corrections officers converging on the man, who is backing away and does not make any moves towards the staff.

They repeatedly yell at him “drop on your knees”. The officer on trial yells “if you don’t drop on your knees I’ll spray you” as he advances on the prisoner.

After he is sprayed, the distressed prisoner says “why did you do this to me?” and “I can’t see brother, please”.

The trial continues.

George Block is an Auckland-based reporter with a focus on police, the courts, prisons and defence. He joined the Herald in 2022 and has previously worked at Stuff in Auckland and the Otago Daily Times in Dunedin.