No damages for man who suffered ‘dreadful injuries’ in prison workshop

A prisoner who suffered “dreadful injuries” to his left hand while operating a steel-cutting guillotine in a Dublin jail, has lost a claim for damages against the State.

Mr Justice Bernard Barton said in a reserved judgment that Felix Moorehouse had lost the tips of all of the fingers on his hand when he caused the blade of the machine to descend on it by pressing the operation pedal.

The judge told barrister Kevin D’Arcy, counsel for the Minister for Justice and Wheatfield Prison, that even had the court held in favour of Mr Moorehouse he would have been found guilty of significant contributory negligence.

“He would have had to bear by far the largest proportion of fault,” Mr Justice Barton said.

Moorehouse claimed he had been under the influence of a controlled drug, Methadone, administered by the prison authorities while taking part in a prison training programme.

However, having found that the injuries had not been caused by any negligence or breach of duty on the part of the authorities, Mr Justice Barton held that an assessment for damages did not fall for consideration.

Unlikely

The judge said he considered Moorehouse’s account of what had happened in the seconds immediately before the incident to be unlikely.

Moorehouse (34), of Galloping Green Road, Stillorgan, Co Dublin, had told the court during a 29-day trial that in November 2008, while an inmate in Wheatfield, he was participating in a training programme.

He had been cutting metal with a guillotine steel cutter when his left hand became caught and he suffered an amputation of the index, middle, ring and little fingers of his left hand.

He was taken by ambulance to Tallaght Hospital and then to St James’s Hospital where he unsuccessfully underwent a procedure to repair the damage.

The court was told Moorehouse suffered a severe, irreparable mutilating injury to his hand which long term would leave him with permanent mutilated appearance, a very considerable loss of hand function and the likelihood of chronic pain and discomfort in the amputation stumps.

All areas of his hand function would be severely affected with an inability to grip a tool or knife or fork.