A COMMENDED prison officer has lost his career after he attacked a violent and disruptive inmate.

Daniel Brown from Newton Abbot put Leo Henshaw into a choke hold which is not a Home Office approved restraint.

A court heard Henshaw was being argumentative and disruptive as he was being booked into Exeter Jail and deliberately coughed in the faces of warders and called them ’gay’ as he was being searched.

The court heard staff were also booking in a prisoner who was a suicide risk at the same time.

Brown later said he saw ’the red mist’ and CCTV saw the incident when Brown put Henshaw into the choke hold.

Brown, aged 29, of Newton Abbot, Devon, and formerly of Okehampton, admitted common assault and was curfewed for three months under a community order. He was ordered to pay £190 costs, but no compensation to Henshaw, who was not injured.

Exeter magistrates were told Henshaw is only 20 but is already very well known to the prison service and officers as a violent, abusive, intimidating individual who baits staff and deliberately coughed in their faces during the Covid emergency.

The court was told Brown had an exemplary nine-year career as a prison officer and had led other officers in dealing with 240 incidents, including hostage situations, in various jails.

He was commended for saving an inmate’s life after giving him CPR for 45 minutes and had ’dealt with countless incidents’ as part of an elite team.

The court was told his now former partner had suffered two miscarriages and the stress led to the ’red mist’ and he has now lost his career at the jail.

The magistrates were told Brown was ’going through a horrendous time and said his life would be at risk if he was given a community order with offenders.

Henshaw, of Countess Wear, Exeter, was jailed last week at the same court for attacking emergency workers in an unrelated attack.