Former corrections officer sentenced for brutal beating
Last Updated: Monday, November 2, 2009 | 4:22 PM NT
CBC News
A former corrections officer who brutally beat a prisoner at a police lockup facility in St. John's was sentenced to fourteen days in jail Monday.
Wayne Carrigan, 52, was sentenced in provincial court by Judge Mark Pike for assault causing bodily harm.
Carrigan was one of two corrections officers charged with assaulting Christopher Mahon at a police lockup in St. John's on March 22, 2008.
Court documents say Carrigan punched Mahon's head and face at least eight times and that the assault resulted in severe bruising and a cut over Mahon's eye that required stitches.
"There can be no doubt that the actions of Carrigan on the evening in question amounts to a serious incidence of violence by a person in a position of trust," Pike wrote in his decision. "The excessive use of force on a prisoner in the confines of the lockup is a reprehensible crime in a free and democratic society."
According to court documents, the beating happened after Mahon verbally taunted corrections officers, including Carrigan.
Pike's written decision said Mahon, who was known to have hepatitis C, also spat at Carrigan and other corrections officers.
"I accept as a mitigating factor the extreme provocation directed at Carrigan by Christopher Mahon. Spitting at the officers when infected with a dangerous communicable disease clearly constituted such provocation," Pike said.
Carrigan, who was previously convicted of assault with a weapon in 2000, will serve his fourteen-day sentence on weekends beginning Friday.
The other guard who was charged was found not guilty following his trial last year.
Carrigan was suspended from his job for three months without pay after the incident. He now works for a car rental company.
