Jury considering verdict on inmates in Shropshire prison attack trial
A trial jury has retired to consider its verdicts on two prisoners accused of assaulting a fellow inmate.
Steven Fletcher, 22, and Paul Woods, 28, denied causing grievous bodily harm to Mitchell Downes with intent after being charged.
Mr Downes suffered a collapsed lung on April 4 last year in Stoke Heath prison.
He claimed Fletcher and Woods assaulted him by kicking and punching his head and body repeatedly.
The jury at Shrewsbury Crown Court heard evidence from Mr Downes, prison officers and medical reports.
Fletcher and Woods said they broke down a barricade Mr Downes had put up in his cell because they were concerned for his safety.
Prosecuting, David Jackson said Mr Downes wanted to leave an arrangement he had with another inmate and move to a different prison – and he had barricaded himself in his cell out of fear of retribution from prisoners who would deem him a ‘snitch’.
Mr Jackson said that this fear turned out to be well-founded, with Fletcher, Woods and other prisoners breaking down the barricade, which was all recorded on CCTV.
The recordings did not capture what happened inside the cell and the defendants deny attacking him.
Mr Downes was left with cuts, marks and a collapsed lung.
Gareth Bellis, representing Fletcher, and Trevor Meegan, for Woods, said that Mr Downes was a known user of the drug Mamba, which he would keep for a fellow prisoner in return for a quantity to smoke.
They said that he had been smoking Mamba on the day of the incident, and that Fletcher and Woods broke down the barricade to help him because of his behaviour earlier that day after an argument with his partner.
During the course of the trial the jury was shown footage of the two defendants kicking and pushing at the barricade in the door of Mr Downes’ cell, and of Woods later dragging Mr Downes by the leg back into his cell after the latter tried to leave and walk down a hallway.
In his final speech to the jury, Mr Bellis said: “You probably don’t like Steven Fletcher.
“You saw him give his evidence, you probably thought he was belligerent, rude, and arrogant.
“That is not how you try this case. You decide it on the evidence alone, no prejudice please.”
Fletcher, from Lancashire, and Woods, from Liverpool, both deny causing grievous bodily harm.
