A prisoner in Cork jail was awarded €16,500 at the High Court yesterday for injuries he sustained after slipping on a toilet floor in the prison.
Joseph Power had sued the governor of Cork Prison and the Minister for Justice over the accident in February 2002.
The prison authorities contended Power was making a false claim, and had been assaulted by other prisoners in the toilet.
In a reserved judgment, Mr Justice Daniel Herbert said Power had told the court that, while walking in the toilet, his legs suddenly slipped from under him and he fell forward. As he fell he struck the left side of his forehead against a radiator. Power said he noticed that an area of the floor between the doors of the toilet cubicle and the handbasins was covered with water.
Power said for several months after the fall he suffered from headaches which gradually decreased. He was left with a two-centimetre scar.
Mr Justice Herbert said it was put to Power that he had been assaulted in the toilet by men considered by a prison officer to have been acting suspiciously.
He said Power accepted he had three convictions for assault and that, four weeks prior to the alleged incident, he had been summoned before the governor for fighting with a fellow prisoner.
The judge said while he accepted it was not unknown for prisoners to attack each other while in prison, he found it was improbable Power was assaulted on this occasion in the toilet.
For pain, discomfort and inconvenience, the judge awarded €10,000 damages to Power and €6,500 for the scar.