A violent criminal who attacked two prison officers at HMP Portland will stay behind bars for a further five months.

Christopher Lloyd, 22, launched an assault on one officer and on a separate occasion punched another, sticking his fingers in the victim’s mouth and pulling outwards.

Appearing via videolink from HMP Hewell in Worcestershire – where he was transferred from HMP Portland – Lloyd pleaded guilty at Weymouth Magistrates Court to two counts of assault by beating.

District Judge Stephen Nichols handed him down two five-month sentences, to run concurrently and to be added to his ongoing 19-month sentence, which he received for assaulting a policeman, damaging a police vehicle and breaching a conditional discharge in in his home town of Stroud in Gloucestershire.

The first incident at HMP Portland occurred on February 10 last year when officer Robert Terrey entered Lloyd’s cell at the jail’s segregation unit.

Inmates had wanted to move cells, and had been told they could not, leaving them ‘in a state of agitation’, said prosecutor Elizabeth Valera.

“I don’t recall him using any words,” said the officer in a victim statement read out to court. “He began punching me in the head using both fists.

“I find myself thinking what would have happened if [the attack] had occurred further from the wing office and no one had been around to help.”

The second attack was sparked 12 days later, on February 22, when Lloyd was refused permission to use the telephone while out of his cell for exercise.

He reportedly became violently angry and abusive, and, after threatening to ‘bang out’ officer Stuart Board, began punching him.

Despite efforts to restrain him, Lloyd managed to insert his fingers into the officer’s mouth and pull outwards on the cheeks to inflict damage and pain, an attack known as a ‘fish-hook’, explained Mrs Valera.

In mitigation, Aileen Tring for Lloyd said the defendant was remorseful for his actions and had been battling depression at the time of the attacks.