A series of errors, failures and falsified records surrounded the vicious bashing of an inmate at Northland's Ngawha Prison by gang members, a report on the attack says.
The Department of Corrections admitted a series of errors surrounded three brutal beatings dished out to Matt Te Hira in his cell by Black Power gang members on March 8, 2008, in the report obtained by the Northern Advocate newspaper under the Official Information Act.
Te Hira spent weeks in hospital after the beatings and has been left with permanent injuries.
Before the attack he told a prison guard he feared for his safety because of gang members in his cell block, but the guard passed those fears on to his superiors only after the attack, the report found.
It also said staff did not carry out muster checks, a guard spending most of the shift in a control room rather than patrolling the unit and the unit log was falsified to show the time between dinner and lock up was 15 minutes, rather than 25.
Staff who found Te Hira also did not respond appropriately to ensure he received urgent medical attention.
Corrections said the performance of some staff involved had been addressed, but would not say how.
A number of actions had been taken since the attack, including new management checks to ensure staff were completing tasks to the required standard; monitoring CCTV footage on a daily basis and managers attending different units to witness prisoner checks.
A new role was created to respond to all incidents and provide immediate leadership. Incident management training had been carried out for the management team.
The prison manager had ensured staff were adhering to national policies and procedures, Corrections said.
