An inmate who admitted assaulting a female prison guard while incarcerated for aggravated burglary has been jailed for another two years.

Puisne Judge Alan Richards said Raymond Kidd, 31, was entitled to a full discount for his early guilty plea but said a message needed to be sent.

“I accept that the level of injury could have been greater but you had no right to use any force at all and the force that you did use has clearly caused her significant physical and mental suffering,” Mr Justice Richards said.

“The responsibility for that is yours and it’s heightened by the fact she was serving the public at the time of the offence.”

He sentenced Kidd to one year behind bars for the offence but said that because the offence occurred in an increased penalty zone, there would be a one-year uplift.

Mr Justice Richards added that the sentence would run consecutive to the prison term he was already serving.

The judge said: “The message must be clear that prison officers have a difficult enough job to do at the best of times.

“Members of the public are entitled to expect that officers may go about their duties, as the prison officer was, without fear of being assaulted.”

Kidd was sentenced to 24 years behind bars in 2013 for his part in a two-man home invasion the previous year — he threatened one woman with a gun and forced a second to perform a sex act on him.

The court heard that on the morning of March 10, 2023, a prison officer was on duty at Westgate when she noticed an inmate in the same cell block as Kidd acting suspiciously.

Kidd allegedly got up, removed a mobile phone charger from the wall, picked up a black mobile phone and approached the officer, who had entered the cell.

The court heard Kidd and another inmate “sandwiched” her in the door frame, causing her to activate a distress signal, before the defendant pushed the officer to move her out of the way.

There was a struggle as the officer attempted to grab the phone, which was contraband, but Kidd threw her to the ground and the phone slid into another prisoner’s cell, where that inmate threw it out of a window.

The officer was taken to King Edward VII Memorial Hospital for assessment after the incident. She had pain in her right leg, shoulder, wrist, ribs and back, and bruises and soft-tissue injuries.

A victim impact statement read in court said the prison officer needed a wheelchair and crutches in the aftermath of the incident and suffered nerve damage that affected her arms and hands.

In addition to her physical injuries, the officer said she experienced difficulty sleeping and lingering concerns about her safety.

Audley Quallo, for the Crown, argued that while the injuries suffered were “moderately serious”, any attack on law enforcement must be treated seriously.

He added that because the altercation occurred while Kidd was already serving time for a serious offence, the incident suggested that he was likely to commit further offences.

While Mr Quallo argued that Kidd did not plead guilty at the first chance, Cameron Hill, for the defence, said that the matter was brought to the Supreme Court because of legitimate concerns that the defendant had already been punished.

Mr Hill also argued that the sentence suggested by the Crown was excessive and that the starting point should be one year behind bars, which, with the discount for his guilty plea, would amount to eight months.

With the additional year for the offence being carried out in an increased-penalty zone, Mr Hill said the total sentence would be almost two years, not too far off the sentence suggested by the Crown.

Kidd declined an opportunity to speak on his sentence.

Delivering his sentence, Mr Justice Richards said: “There are very good reasons why inmates are prohibited from possessing mobile phones and the officer was only doing her job when she entered Cell 24.

“You were not the person whose activities she sought to investigate but you chose to intervene and did so in a violent manner.

“You pushed her body in an attempt to move her out of the way. When she attempted to seize the mobile phone, a struggle ensured and you threw her to the ground.”

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