Killer gets $45k for prison attack

CONVICTED killer Daniel Agard will receive $45,000 from the State for a cut he received on his face from another inmate while in the airing yard of the prison in December 2018, in full view of prison officers.

The order was made by Justice Ricky Rahim on July 18.

The judge had to decide if the State was liable for Agard’s injury, which was inflicted by Wincellus James, another death row inmate. Agard has since been removed from death row after he filed a constitutional motion in 2023 and James has since been released from prison.

The two death-row inmates were in the airing yard for their one-hour airing on December 17, 2018, when James approached Agard and slashed him across the right cheek with a prison-issued toothbrush with a blade set into it at one end. In his lawsuit, Agard said James was a known erratic offender, having assaulted other prisoners and had adopted an aggressive attitude against him.

His attorneys, Lemuel Murphy and Alexia Romero argued that the State had a duty to provide Agard with a safe place, ensuring the prison grounds were adequately supervised and ensuring every prisoner was appropriately guarded.

In his ruling, Rahim held the prison officers had a general duty to be alert and supervise the inmates in the airing yard. He said they breached their duty of care by failing to search the airing yard when they knew high-risk prisoners would use the opportunity to settle their differences by resorting to violence.

“Clearly, the level of supervision that was taking place that day was far below the standard required and had the officers been truly performing their duty with due diligence, they would most likely have prevented James from acquiring a knife in the yard and assaulting Agard.”

He was also critical of the officers' allowance of an infringement of the prison rules by permitting James to have a cigarette in his possession, which he handed over to Agard.

“It cannot be underscored that the act of approaching Agard to give him a smoke was a prohibited act that was not stopped by the officers.

“So, that to say that there was nothing to be concerned about because James appeared to only be transferring a cigarette is somewhat disingenuous. He should not have been permitted to do this in the first place.”

Rahim also said an aggravating feature in the case was that Agard was wounded in the presence of prison officers “entrusted with the general duty to protect him, some of whom were not paying attention to their duty and others who failed to perform their duty to search the yard.”

Agard, 39, was twice convicted of the brutal murders of members of the Cropper family in 2001.

He first went to trial in 2004 when he and another man, Lester Pitman, were convicted and sentenced to hang for the murders of Maggie Lee, Lynette Lithgow-Pearson and John Cropper on December 11, 2001.

Agard was the great-nephew of John and the late independent senator Angela Cropper. Lee was his great-grandmother and Pearson his great-aunt.

Agard successfully appealed his convictions and a retrial was ordered. He was again convicted and three death sentences were again imposed on him on September 13, 2013, which he appealed and lost in July 2019.

He did not appeal further to the Privy Council.

His co-accused, Pitman, successfully challenged his case at appeal and his death sentence was commuted.

He was eventually ordered not to be released before he serves a minimum of 40 years in prison.

British national Cropper, his mother-in-law Maggie Lee and his Lithgow-Pearson were killed at Cropper's home in Mt Anne Drive, Second Avenue, Cascade, between December 11 and 12, 2001.

Their bodies were found on December 13. They had been bound and gagged with electrical wire and their throats had been slit.

Lithgow-Pearson was a former television broadcaster with the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC).

Cropper’s wife Angela, who was not at home at the time of the murders, died in London in November 2016. She was a former independent senator.

At Agard’s trials, graphic video recordings of the crime scene were shown to jurors.