Man jailed for life for murdering his mother is sentenced over prison officer attack

A 24-year-old man from Castlebar, County Mayo, who is serving a life sentence for the 2011 murder of his mother, has been sentenced to two and a half years imprisonment for assaulting a prison officer at Mountjoy Prison. The man pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to throwing boiling water at the officer on 15 April 2014. The officer sustained burns to his face and shoulder and was absent from work for five weeks. The court heard the defendant has sustained irreversible organic brain damage from drug abuse during his teenage years and was transferred from the Central Mental Hospital to Mountjoy following his murder conviction. At the time of the assault, his medication had recently been altered and he had just been moved from a padded cell. Judge Martin Nolan noted the defendant had no impulse control and observed there was no rational explanation for the attack. The court heard the defendant has since remained free of further convictions and is receiving psychiatric care in custody.