AN INMATE at a Dorset jail spat in the face of a prison officer just minutes after the offender was told he had tested positive for the coronavirus.

Leigh Yeo, 29, committed the assault against John Chapman at HMP Guys Marsh during the height of the second wave of the pandemic.

Bournemouth Crown Court heard that Yeo reacted angrily on January 21 after being informed in his cell that he had contracted Covid-19.

Mr Chapman went to close the cell door after an assessment by two health workers, but the defendant, who had been recalled to prison for breaching licence conditions as part of a sentence for grievous bodily harm, spat “directly in his face”, with the spittle hitting the officer in the eye and ear above his face mask.

Prosecuting, Stuart Ellacott said prior to the spit, Yeo had thrown his lunch box at Mr Chapman.

As a result of the incident, the prison officer had to self-isolate.

“Fortunately the officer tested negative,” said Mr Ellacott.

The prosecutor said the defendant had 44 previous convictions for 80 offences.

Mitigating, Timothy Compton said the assault was “not the sort of behaviour Mr Yeo should have engaged in”, adding that it was an “unpleasant offence”.

The barrister said his client had been released on licence but breached his conditions when he stayed at his girlfriend’s property, which was not a notified address.

Mr Compton raised comparisons between the mortality rate of Covid-19 and the Spanish flu in an attempt to lessen the seriousness of the harm caused by the offence.

Judge Jonathan Fuller QC, who did not accept this submission, said: “For some it can be a very debilitating and notwithstanding fatal disease.”

The judge said the culpability of the offence is “manifest because there is a desire to humiliate, degrade and distress the prison officer”.

“These are degrading offences and the possibility that they give rise to the transmission of disease reaffirms that element of harm,” added Judge Fuller QC.

“Fortunately he did not get Covid but he had all the worry and stress. He had to isolate so that affected his work.”

Yeo, who is now detained at HMP Exeter and appeared via video link, could be seen using a vape during the hearing.

The defendant, who previously pleaded guilty to assault by beating of an emergency worker, received a six-month prison sentence.

However, Judge Fuller QC said it was “regrettable” that the law did not allow him to implement this consecutively to the offender’s existing term of imprisonment.

Judge Fuller QC said: “These offences of spitting at prison officers are offences of high culpability.

“The obvious point they are committed by an inmate in custody against a prison officer – somebody working in the public service.

“The only intention behind it is to cause fear or actual transmission of disease.

“At the very least there is recklessness as to whether disease could be transmitted.”

A Prison Service spokesperson said: “This was a disgraceful attack on a hard-working prison officer trying to keep people safe, so it is only right that this offender will remain behind bars in tougher conditions.

“We are investing an extra £100m in prison security, giving officers body-worn cameras and PAVA spray to help them do their jobs more safely.”

  • Dorset Police said they did not hold a custody image of Yeo in relation to the spitting offence

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