An HMP Grampian inmate threatened to rape and shoot a female prison officer and blow up her car after she told him he’d have to move to a new cell.
Liam Jones flew into a rage when asked to pack his belongings and subjected the officer to a “sustained period” of “vile” comments and threats.
The 23-year-old also boiled a kettle and threatened to scald anyone who tried to enter his cell – and said he would rape the female prison officer, her mother and her daughter.
The yob claimed he would be released soon and would wait outside for her and blow up her car before trashing his cell and causing hundreds of pounds worth of damage.
In court, Jones claimed the prison officer had a problem with him being from Liverpool, but was jailed after admitting his “appalling” behaviour.
‘I’ll burst the first screw that comes through this door’
Fiscal depute Brian Young told Aberdeen Sheriff Court the prison officer attended at Jones’ cell around 7.30am on February 9 last year and told him he had been chosen to move to a different area of the jail.
She handed him bags and left him to pack his belongings. However, when she returned an hour later Jones had not packed anything and said: “I’m not going anywhere.”
When the officer again ordered him to pack, Jones taunted: “You’ll need a team to move me.”
He added: “I’ll burst the first screw that comes through this door.”
A short time later, Jones activated his emergency intercom, in response to which the prison officer looked through the cell door’s observation hatch to see him “standing near to the cell door holding a steaming kettle”.
Jones shouted: “The first one of you through the door is getting scalded.”
As she walked away Jones shouted after her: “One of your cars are getting blown up.”
Due to the kettle threat, the power was switched off in Jones’ cell.
During the morning, Jones continued to taunt the woman, saying: “As soon as you open this door,
you are getting scalded you dirty little slut.”
He also spat towards the door each time she walked past and shouted to other prisoners in the section to do the same.
Jones “relentlessly and aggressively” made threats to the woman throughout the day.
Claimed officer had ‘problem with people from Liverpool’
He told her: “I’m out on Tuesday, I will be in the car park with my friends and your car is getting blown up!”
Other taunts included “I will shoot you”, “you need raped you silly cow” and “I will smash your face in”.
He stated he would kill her, as well as rape her, her mother and her daughter, and petrol bomb every vehicle in the prison car park.
Jones also smashed the windows in his cell and damaged various items, causing £888 of repairs.
At around 5pm, a “restraints team of prison officers donned in full personal protective
equipment” entered the cell and, when Jones refused to comply, restrained him and moved him to a segregation unit.
Jones, now a prisoner of HMP Perth, pled guilty to behaving in a threatening or abusive manner.
‘Of course he’s regretful now he’s got to face the consequences’
Defence agent Bruce MacDonald said there was “no excuse” for his client’s behaviour, adding: “Everyone, including prison officers, has got the right to go about their business without having to face this behaviour.
“It’s unacceptable and he does offer an apology.”
Sheriff William Summers interjected and asked if Jones had apologised to the prison officer herself.
Mr MacDonald said he had not, and the sheriff suggested the apology in the courtroom meant little as a result.
The solicitor said Jones regretted his actions, and Sheriff Summers said: “Of course he’s regretful now he’s got to face the consequences of it, but he has not apologised.”
Mr MacDonald went on to suggest the prison officer involved had “a problem with people from Liverpool”.
‘Your behaviour was appalling’
He said: “She did not think he was somebody worthy of any respect.”
He said Jones had not reacted to this previously, but did so on the day of the offence.
Jones is currently serving a three-year jail term for his role in an organised crime gang selling of drugs in Aberdeen, and Mr MacDonald asked for any jail sentence over the prison incident to be made concurrent to that one.
Sheriff Summers replied: “That might send the message prisoners can do whatever they want in the prison with no consequences, which is not a message, in my assessment, we should be sending.”
Addressing Jones directly, the sheriff said: “Your behaviour was appalling. It involved a sustained period of you directing vile and abusive threats towards a prison officer.
“I’m not prepared to make any sentence concurrent because, in effect, you would escape punishment for your behaviour on February 9 2021.”
He ordered Jones to be jailed for a further nine months on top of the three years previously imposed over the drugs matter.
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