Inmate receives extra jail time for assault on guard

File photo / NZ Herald

An inmate will spend an extra two and a half years in jail after seriously assaulting a prison guard in Hawke's Bay Prison last year.

Benjamin Rickard assaulted the guard during a strip search, causing the officer to lose consciousness and fracturing his eye socket and cheek bone.

The attack came only a short time after Rickard assaulted another guard at the same prison.

Rickard was serving a six year sentence in Hawke's Bay Prison when he first assaulted a guard in 2011.

A year later, he attacked another prison officer, who required facial reconstructive surgery.

Rickard appeared today by an audio-visual link when he was sentenced in the Hastings District Court, as he is in the high security wing in Auckland Prison at Paremoremo.

Judge Down made Rickard's sentence cumulative, meaning it will be added on top of his current term of imprisonment.