Scottish Government to pay damages to former prisoner over Craiginches attack

A former Craiginches prisoner will get a payout from the Scottish Government after he claimed jail staff failed to protect him from a vicious murder bid by a violent racist behind bars.

Daniel Kaizer was subjected to a threat in the gym at Aberdeen's Craiginches prison a week before he was attacked with a steel bar bell.

Mr Kaizer suffered a fractured skull after the assault inflicted on him by Keith Porter on December 4 in 2009 while he was exercising at the gym.

Porter, who had tried to murder another Polish man in July that year, was later given a life sentence under an Order for Lifelong Restriction following the attack on Mr Kaizer.

35-year-old Mr Kaizer of Aberdeenshire sued the Scottish Ministers, who are responsible for the Scottish Prison Service, at the Court of Session in Edinburgh for damages following the racially motivated murder bid on him.

A judge has ruled in his favour and found that they had failed in their duty of care to the former prisoner and were liable. A further hearing will decide the level of damages to be awarded in the action in which Mr Kaizer sued for £900,000.

In the case the injured man had claimed that the attack on him was the carrying out of the earlier threat made to him by Porter and reported to a prison officer, Gary Lumsden, at the time.

Lord Ericht said: "I consider that the assault on the pursuer (Kaizer) was an incident of a kind such as might have been anticipated if there was no communication onwards to the prison authorities by Mr Lumsden of the threat which had been reported to him."

"The facts of the current case fall within the circumstances in which prison authorities can be liable for assaults by one prisoner on another," said the judge.

"The threat which was made by Mr Porter and reported to Mr Lumsden demonstrated that the pursuer was at particular risk of violent attack," he said.

Lord Ericht said: "Mr Porter made a specific threat to smash the pursuer's face in. The pursuer informed Mr Lumsden of the threat. Mr Lumsden should have reported the threat, but he failed to do so.

"Mr Lumsden did not take reasonable care to prevent the implementation of the threat by reporting it. It was reasonably foreseeable that the pursuer was likely to sustain damage to his person if such reasonable care was not taken," he said.

The judge added: "Had Mr Lumsden reported the threat, on the balance of probabilities the attempted murder would not have taken place."

Mr Kaizer, a former construction industry worker, who was on remand at the time of the murder bid, was later given a 10 week jail sentence for assault.

He told the court that in the initial incident in the gym Porter had been "really verbal to me".

He said he gone to speak to one of the prison officers, Mr Lumsden, and told him he was scared and revealed what had been said to him. He said he had gone to another Polish inmate and asked him to look out for and protect him.

SPS PE instructor Mr Lumsden said he remembered Mr Kaizer coming into the office about a week before the assault on him but maintained he was complaining about something to do with dumbbells and gestured to the door but did not tell him who it was.

He said that nothing had been said about violence, only that equipment had been taken off of him.

But Lord Ericht said he found Mr Kaizer to be a credible and reliable witness and preferred his evidence to that of Mr Lumsden.

Another prisoner, Lukas Rusek, said he remembered Mr Lumsden calling him to watch and keep an eye on Mr Kaizer.

In the damages action Mr Kaizer's lawyers had maintained that no complaint from him was recorded in a prison request book nor did Mr Lumsden submit any intelligence report.

Porter had a criminal record which a judge called "disturbing reading". He had more than 30 previous convictions, many involving violence and four of which had a racial element.

He had admitted the attempted murder of another Polish national, Jaroslaw Janecek, in a horrific attack with a mop handle days before the gym assault of Mr Kaizer. He received an extended sentence of 15 years for the previous murder bid