A prisoner beat a fellow inmate about the face with a can of beans in a sock leaving him unconscious and bleeding at the bottom of a flight of stairs. Ezra Greig claimed he attacked the man with the improvised weapon for "making a mug of him" in the prison exercise yard.
Just weeks earlier Greig had beaten a cellmate black and blue with a kettle because of his noisy snoring. Swansea Crown Court heard Greig, who is serving a lengthy sentence for drug dealing, has taken an anger management course since he attacked his fellow prisoners.
Ashanti-Jade Walton, prosecuting, said in October 2020 Greig was being held on remand in HMP Swansea in connection with drug trafficking offences. At 2pm on October 20 the defendant and his victim, Clayton Jones, encountered each other on a landing of the jail and Jones said: "All right" to the defendant. The prosecutor said that without warning Greig attacked his target with a tin of baked beans in a sock, hitting Jones three times the face with the improvised weapon. The dazed Jones stumbled and fell down a nearby flight of stairs. Greig then began shouting and swearing at Jones as he lay bleeding and unconscious at the bottom of the stairs saying: "I told you I would get you. Making a mug of me on the yard."
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The court heard Jones was taken to Morriston Hospital where he underwent a CT scan to check for head injuries. He was found to have suffered lacerations on the face and fractures to an eye socket.
The prosecutor said Grieg was interviewed about the incident in January 2021 and he said he an anti-social personality disorder which he believed meant he had trouble controlling his anger. On this occasion he gave a different explanation for the assault having told police he had heard Jones was a sex offender.
Ezra James Grieg, aged 28, of Station Close, High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, admitted assault occasioning actual bodily harm (ABH). He has 23 previous convictions for 37 offences including batteries, assaulting an emergency worker, affray, ABH, possession of Class A drugs with intent to supply, and possession of an imitation firearm with intent to cause fear. In December 2020 he was sentenced to 67 months in prison after being caught running a heroin- and cocaine-dealing operation from a house in the Manselton area of Swansea. Two days after being arrested for on suspicion of dealing Greig attacked his Swansea Prison cellmate John Rogers, beating him about the head with a plastic kettle and repeatedly punching him before trying to tie him up with flex. When asked if he had assaulted his cellmate Greig replied: "Yeah, because he was f***ing snoring." Rogers was left with a bloody head, cuts to his face and neck, and two black eyes and he was taken for medical treatment but refused to make a statement to the police and did not support the prosecution of his assailant. Greig was sentenced to five months for that assault. The prosecutor said it had to be acknowledged there had been a "significant delay" in the assault on Jones coming to court and she said a report had been submitted to the court giving reasons for that delay which included a lack of police resources, the mental health of the complainant, and difficulties liaising with prison staff.
Jon Tarrant, for Greig, said the defendant had spent his time in custody "productively" by attending courses including anger management and he said there had been no further incidents since the two outbursts of violence the court had heard about. He said his client's current release date was December 6 this year.
Judge Paul Thomas KC told Grieg that in October 2020 had had carried out a "planned attack" on a fellow inmate using an "ugly weapon" which had happened just weeks after he had assaulted his cellmate with a kettle. The judge said the sentence that was due would have to be reduced because of the two-and-a-half-year delay in the incident being brought to court – a delay for which he said he could see no reason. Greig was sentenced to four months in prison which he will serve consecutively with the drug-dealing sentence he is serving. The effect of the sentence will be to push the defendant's release back by two months.
South Wales Police was unable to provide a custody photograph of Greig.
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