assault | 

Female inmate handed further jail time after grabbing prison officer by the throat

Mother-of-four Marta Hopkins (39) used a chair to attack another inmate on a landing

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A prisoner grabbed a prison officer by the neck when the victim intervened as she used a chair to attack another inmate on a landing.

Mother-of-four Marta Hopkins (39) let go of the chair and put her hands around the prison guard’s throat, leaving her with scratch marks and bruising, a court heard.

Jailing her for another three months, Judge John Hughes said it was not part of prison staff’s duties to endure assaults.

Hopkins, of Kinvara Heights, Cavan, pleaded guilty to assaulting the officer at Mountjoy Prison’s Dóchas Centre on March 12 last year.

Garda Sergeant Mary ­Maycock told Dublin District Court an officer was on duty that morning when she heard screaming and saw Hopkins hitting another prisoner with a chair.

The officer went to take the chair from the accused and Hopkins let go of it but put both her hands around the officer’s neck.

Other prison staff arrived and removed Hopkins from the victim, who suffered scratches to her neck and bruising to her right cheek.

The accused had previous convictions for offences including several assaults.

Hopkins, a Polish national, had a diagnosis of post-traumatic epilepsy following a traffic collision, her barrister Barry Lysaght said.

She experienced seizures where she lost control and her behaviour had been erratic, he said.

In this case, Hopkins account was that she was using the phone when the other prisoner approached her and “prodded her with a mop”.

She reacted in a way that was not acceptable, Mr Lysaght said. She partially recalled lifting up the chair but suffered memory loss.

Although there was “something else going on beforehand” that was not before the court, she acknowledged she was the aggressor in the assault on the prison officer.

Judge Hughes made the three months consecutive to Hopkins current sentence, due to end next year.