Sheffield judge condemns and jails security guards who attacked defendants in court cells

‘Your job requires you to exercise care, control and responsibility,” a Sheffield judge said, as he jailed two former court security guards who attacked defendants in their cells, knocking one unconscious, and leaving the other with a punctured lung. 

Sheffield Crown Court was told how the two separate attacks were carried out by defendants Jack Henderson, aged 31, and 34-year-old Sharjeel Jelani, while they were employed as court security guards in the cells at Leeds Magistrates’ Court, tasked with monitoring defendants due to be brought to or from court. 

As he sent the former security guards to begin their own prison sentences, Sheffield Judge David Dixon said that while he accepted that the defendants the guards attacked had done what they could to create disruption, with one kicking his cell door and the other blocking his toilet and flooding his cell, there was nothing ‘unusual’ in their behaviour. He suggested it was 'part of the territory' for those working in such roles.

Judge Dixon told Henderson and Jelani as they stood in the dock, during a hearing held on September 5, 2023: “As the security guard standing to your right knows, working downstairs within a court cell environment is not an easy situation, at all. Let’s be honest, individuals that are placed downstairs, in a court cell, are there for a reason…the majority of individuals who are dealt with are difficult people, difficult, violent, perhaps even abhorrent individuals. 

“But your job requires you to exercise care, control and responsibility, and to do that within the confines of dealing with difficult people. And I’m sure that across the time you were employed in the role you encountered no end of abuse, both verbal but also probably violent. 

“I’ve heard, in your case Mr Jelani, you were bitten in the past, but that doesn’t count for a great deal, I’m afraid. That goes with the territory of your job, in the same way it does with the police.”

Judge Dixon told the pair that violence can only be used by security guards as a ‘last resort’ to ‘calm and control’. 

“You both failed to do that, as a result, you have abused the position of power and responsibility upon you…that’s why this case is particularly serious.”

Describing the circumstances leading up to the attack carried out by Jelani on November 20, 2019, which left a defendant with a punctured lung, Judge Dixon said the individual, complainant one, ‘rightly or wrongly’ felt aggrieved that he had been left alone in his cell, while others ‘creating a fuss’ had been taken back to prison.

Prosecuting barrister, David Hewitt, said complainant one ‘expressed his dissatisfaction’ with the situation by kicking his cell door, causing Jelani to enter the cell. 

Mr Hewitt said Jelani’s basis of plea, which has been accepted by the prosecution, states that when he opened the cell door, Jelani judged himself to be ‘under attack,’ and consequently punched complainant one. 

Mr Hewitt said Jelani ‘struck complainant one with such force that it broke two of his ribs and punctured one of his lungs’. 

“He describes being in agony…and unbearable pain, causing him to be unable to stand and to struggle to breathe,” Mr Hewitt said, adding that complainant one was subsequently taken to hospital, where he remained for three days. 

Henderson attacked another defendant in the cells at Leeds Magistrates' Court, in a separate incident which took place a month later, on December 20, 2019. 

In the minutes prior to the incident, the victim - complainant two - ‘blocked his toilet, causing his cell to flood,’ Mr Hewitt told the court, adding: “This led to two guards, including the defendant Mr Henderson, attending his cell…Mr Henderson proceeded to throw complainant two to the floor of his cell, into a pool of toilet water. Mr Henderson proceeded to punch complainant two to the face, and when complainant to tried to cover his face, Mr Henderson pulled his arms away, and punched him to the face again…Mr Henderson held him against the wall and punched him further times.”

Complainant two was knocked unconscious during the course of the attack, the court heard. 

Mr Hewitt said the second security guard present tried to intervene and stop the attack, which Henderson responded to by threatening him.

“A senior officer attended and observed Mr Henderson to be angry, she asked him what had happened and Mr Henderson said complainant two 'deserved it' and was ‘putting it on’,” Mr Hewitt said, adding that Henderson was then asked to leave the cells. 

Complainant two was subsequently taken to hospital by ambulance, where he remained for two to three days, and was found to have suffered a number of injuries including a bilateral periorbital wound and visible bruising to his left arm, the court heard. 

Henderson, of Waterton Road, Lupset, Wakefield, pleaded guilty to a charge of assault occasioning actual bodily harm at an earlier hearing, while Jelani, of Snape Drive, Bradford, admitted a charge of causing grievous bodily harm. 

Rupert Doswell, defending Jelani, said: “It was a single punch. He now accepts those actions [of self defence] were excessive, but one does need to look at the situation as a whole, what led to the incident, and his state of mind. 

Mr Doswell referred to an incident in 2018 in which Jelani, while working as a court security guard, was bitten by a defendant leaving him with an injury, from which he ‘still bears the scars’. 

“It follows that he was perhaps more anxious than others in that situation. We ask a lot of those put in that position of ensuring the safety of those in custody, and controlling what are often violent inmates,” Mr Doswell said, and asked Judge Dixon to consider that it has now been ‘almost four years’ since the incident, the fact that Jelani has not committed any additional offences in the intervening period and has a 10-year-old child, for whom he is the ‘sole carer’. 

Henderson’s barrister, John Batchelor, said Judge Dixon was faced with a ‘stark choice’ and the ‘precarious position’ Henderson has ‘placed himself in’ is not lost on him.

“My submission simply is that in all the circumstances, having regard to the circumstances of the offence; his good behaviour; the effect on his boys, for whom he is the sole carer - with the help of his parents - the sentence can be suspended,” Mr Batchelor said. 

Commenting on the assault Henderson admitted to, Mr Batchelor said Henderson’s behaviour was ‘uncharacteristic’ and claimed he ‘lost the proverbial plot’. 

“The effects of a custodial sentence for him, as a security officer, might be particularly difficult,” Mr Batchelor added. 

Jailing Jelani for 22 months, Judge Dixon told him: “It’s been suggested that you acted in excessive self defence. That’s not an appropriate term. It was the use of violence in an inappropriate way, and excessive violence, the effects of it was to cause a punctured lung…as everyone knows, a punctured lung can kill, and you were fortunate it did not.”

Turning to Henderson, as he sent him to begin an 18-month prison sentence, Judge Dixon continued: “This was prolonged and persistent. It involved excessive violence, and this complainant was particularly vulnerable because of the situation he was in…it involves an abuse of trust.”

Judge Dixon said of his decision not to suspend the pair’s prison sentences: “People who are charged with the responsibility of looking after others in care, whether in a care home, hospital or prison environment, are given a particular responsibility; and you have failed in that duty. It therefore must be an immediate term of custody.”

A West Yorkshire Police spokesperson said the force does not hold custody images of either defendant, and provided this statement: "Both defendants were interviewed at a police station as voluntary attendees and therefore were not under arrest."