A lawsuit has been filed against the provincial government and others after what lawyer Bob Buckingham calls the negligent performance of dental surgery on an inmate of the Correctional Centre in Bishop’s Falls earlier this fall.

The Statement of Claim alleges that on October 16, Blair Harris was taken to a dental clinic in Gander for surgery. It claims that during the surgery, one of the correctional staff was allowed to perform a dental procedure while another correctional officer filmed it. The video was later distributed to others.

The correctional officers have since been terminated after the video came to the attention of management.

Buckingham says an important component of the lawsuit will be to test the law on whether there is a positive duty for a correctional officer to stop another who is causing harm to an inmate.

He claims there have been “numerous incidents of complaints against correctional officers in the province for assaulting inmates, some of which have resulted in charges, and others which have not been reported.”