Canberra prisoner Tian-Jarrah Denniss hid lighter up his anus after setting fire to his cell
Tian-Jarrah Denniss was found with a cigarette lighter “protruding from his anus” after setting fire to his cell.
Canberra Star
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Prison guards confiscated a cigarette lighter a problem inmate stashed inside his bum after he set fire to his cell, a court has heard.
Tian-Jarrah Denniss, 29, of Tamworth, was this week sentenced in the ACT Supreme Court to two years jail for twice setting fire to his cell at Canberra’s Alexander Maconochie Centre.
The court heard Denniss, a drug addict and career criminal, set fire to his first cell in the remand wing in September 2018, shortly after being sentenced to three years jail for robbing the Braddon Cellarbrations bottle shop, during which he used a smashed bottle of sweet chilli sauce as a weapon.
Denniss also set fire to his cell in the high-security wing this year, where he was being kept for disciplinary reasons.
The two fires caused more than $100,000 damage, which the ACT taxpayer will have to pay after Justice David Mossop said there would be no point ordering Denniss to cover the damages bill.
After the first fire, Justice Mossop said, Denniss was “aggressive and abusive towards corrections staff”.
“He was subsequently stripsearched and a cigarette lighter was observed protruding from his anus.”
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That fire caused nearly $88,000 in damage, and repairs are still underway.
The court heard six other inmates have been sentenced for setting fire to their cells at the prison since 2014, although Denniss’s first fire caused the most damage.
After Denniss’s second fire, which caused $17,000 in damage, guards stripsearched him but did not find a lighter.
Denniss’s behaviour in custody has previously been described as “unsatisfactory”, with 21 disciplinary charges or warnings in July 2018 alone.
In sentencing Denniss for arson this week, Justice Mossop said he had a “deprived and dysfunctional childhood” and had spent most of his adult life behind bars.
“He appears to have had little regard for the consequences of his actions either for himself or others,” he said.
“He remains a person with little capacity to think through the consequences of his actions or assess the risk of adverse consequences.
“While there is always hope for rehabilitation his prospects of rehabilitation appear to be poor. “The first arson occurred only a few days after I sentenced him on the previous occasion.
“The second arson occurred after he had been charged in May 2019 with the first arson.”
Denniss will be eligible for parole in 2021.