A MAN serving a life sentence for murder left a Berwyn prison officer with serious burns after a violent outburst on Christmas Day.

William Bodinnar, of no fixed abode, admitted to assaulting the Wrexham-based prison officer with a scalding cup of tea at a virtual hearing before Mold Crown Court.

The prosecution, Ryan Rothwell, told the court Bodinnar, 30, was an inmate at HMP Berwyn serving a 17-year life sentence for murder when the incident occurred.

He said prison officer Jamie Hogarth was on duty on Christmas Day and tried to separate a fight with another colleague that had broken out between two inmates.

The situation escalated when one of the prisoner’s refused to cooperate with staff and this appears to have ‘riled up’ some of the wing’s other prisoners, the prosecutor said.

More inmates gathered around the officers as they handled the situation with the inmate from the previous fight, with officers ending up on the floor.

This was when Bodinnar approached the officers with a cup of hot tea and threw the contents over Mr Hogarth’s face before ‘calmly walking back to his cell’.

Reading from the victim’s account of event, Mr Rothwell says that the prison officer felt a ‘sharp stabbing pain’ in his left eye as well as a burning sensation down the left-hand side of his body.

A supervising officer at the prison initially treated him and dressed and irrigated Mr Hogarth’s eye.

Medical notes read out in court from when Mr Hogarth attended Wrexham Maelor A&E said he suffered first degree burns on his upper eyelid and swelling to the eye. No visual impairments were identified by doctors but left the prison officer with blurry vision for weeks. The court heard how Mr Hogarth and his family were upset that he spent last Christmas in A&E due to the incident and it took him about two months to recover his eyesight fully. The officer is now physically healed but mentally impacted by the event, the court was told.

A statement from the prison’s custodial manager was summarised in court, saying that assaults like this have ‘obvious wide-ranging and adverse effects’ and undermines the safety of officers.

Representing himself, Bodinnar said the incident was a ‘moment of lapse’ in his judgement and said he had ‘lost his head’ at the time due to his mum being ill in hospital.

He told the judge how he wanted to apologise for his actions and regretted everything he had done after working on several courses in prison to change his behaviour.

Passing sentence, Recorder Paul Lewis QC told Bodinnar how he was taking his early guilty plea into account but said that it does not excuse his actions and gave a one year sentence to run concurrently with his ongoing life sentence – which will not be reviewed until 2027.

He said: “To lose sight in one’s eye, even for a short period of time, demonstrates the level of harm caused and suffered. You chose to play a part in the violence that had already erupted when you approached the officer and threw your tea over him.

“Your antecedence demonstrates that you are clearly a violent man.

“Prison officers and those employed expect that if they are assaulted that their attacker will receive punishment.”