Two deny prison riot charges
File image. © Andrew Bardwell
Two inmates have pleaded not guilty to a charge of rioting in the Christchurch Men’s Prison in November.
Name suppression orders also lapsed today for Aiden Hamilton, 24, charged with assault with intent to injure, and rioting, and Shane Monu Te Fotu Tonga, 25, charged with assault with intent to injure, rioting, and injuring with intent to injure.
Christchurch District Court Judge Brian Callaghan remanded them both to a Crown case review session on April 10.
Rawiri Graham Richardson, 25, was remanded without plea on charges of assault with intent to injure, rioting, and injuring with intent to injure, to the same date.
All three appeared at court by video-link from the prison.
Police allege that six Christchurch prisoners attacked four Corrections staff in the Rawhiti unit, as the staff were moving them back inside from the yard area.
The acting unit manager was allegedly punched in the face and stabbed with a sharpened piece of wire by a prisoner who was being searched, and the other prison officers were injured by prisoners.
The charge alleges the men were “members of a group of six or more persons who, acting together, were using violence against persons to the alarm of persons in the neighbourhood of that group”.
Category: News
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