Mark Taylor, 64, appeared in the Dunedin District Court yesterday and admitted a charge of assault.
The court heard that on December 1 while he was serving a sentence of preventive detention — an indefinite prison term — at Otago Corrections Facility, the defendant spat in a prison officer’s face.
Counsel Andrew Dawson said the defendant previously had a good relationship with the staff member but there had been ‘‘an incident’’ earlier that day.
Taylor admitted he spat in the officer’s direction, but did not necessarily intend to hit his face, the lawyer said.
The defendant knew he needed to stop misbehaving in custody, especially if he wanted to improve his chances of eventually getting parole.
The offending seemed to be ‘‘out of character’’ for the defendant, who had not been involved in similar incidents with staff while in custody, Mr Dawson said.
But, since he was sentenced to preventive detention in 2002 for sex offending, Taylor had got into mischief.
During the first year of his sentence he escaped Christchurch Men’s Prison in a food truck prompting an extensive search using dogs and a helicopter, The New Zealand Herald reported.
Police eventually found Taylor hiding in a house.
In 2019 he was one of five drunk men swimming and doing bombs into a water-filled rubbish skip at the prison, Stuff reported.
Taylor’s original sentence was imposed for a string of offences including an incident when he forced his way into the home of a 56-year-old Otago woman and sexually attacked her.
Yesterday, for his most recent misbehaviour behind bars, Judge Peter Winter sentenced the defendant to a concurrent prison term of three months.
‘‘Spittng at anybody is a disgusting action,’’ the judge said.
