Prisons officer seeks Shs500m over assault during training

A junior prisons officer, who suffered permanent disability allegedly due to being assaulted by his seniors during orientation, has petitioned the Commissioner General of Prisons, seeking compensation worth Shs500m.
In his June 8, 2021, petition, Mr Raphael Okello, through his lawyers of Hilal & Company Advocates, avers that he was appointed  a prisons warder effective February 2, 2020 when was 24 years old.

But he claims that on July 4, 2020, he was brutally and repeatedly assaulted by a prison warder identified as Dominic Akena during orientation at Luzira Prisons Academy and Training School.
As a result, Mr Okello says he sustained damage to his spinal code and occasioned damage to his renal and urinary system.

“Our client endeavoured to contact the Uganda Prisons as his employers for medical assistance but unfortunately that was not heeded and since July 2020, he has severally been hospitalised at Mulago National Referral Hospital and other medical facilities and he has personally, incurred colossal sums of money treating an ailment that was occasioned to him by your officer on duty,” Mr Okello’s lawyers state in their petition to the Commissioner General of Prisons.
The lawyers further state that their client cannot continue to work with the Uganda Prisons given the disability.

“He hoped to work and serve the prisons till his retirement but this is now a distant dream occasioned by the illegal, brutal and inhumane acts of one of your officers to which he holds the Uganda Prisons vicariously and solely liable,” Mr Okello’s lawyers aver.
The lawyers say the Shs500m is to atone for the disability he got.
Dr Johnson Byabashaija, the Commissioner General of Prisons, yesterday said he had not yet seen Mr Okello’s petition.

“I have not seen the petition but when it comes, I will give it to the people concerned to address it,” Dr Byabashaija said by telephone.