Homophobic killer gets extra five months in jail for spitting on female prison officer

Lithuanian national Andrius Dunauskas, appearing at Lisburn Magistrates Court by videolink from Maghaberry, admitted assaulting the prison officer on 31 May this year.

The court heard that having been woken up, Dunauskas, 35, spat in the officer’s face and because it landed in her eye, the officer had to undergo blood tests which came back negative.

Defence counsel for Dunauskas said she had been instructed that the killer “has asked me to apologise” to the officer involved, revealing that he was 11 years into a life sentence with a minimum tariff of 20 years.

In 2010 Dunauskas and his accomplice Ramunas Balseris, 37, were each handed life sentences with 20 year minimum tariffs for the brutal homophobic murder of 32-year-old Shaun Fitzpatrick.

The supermarket manager was walking home from the pub in Dungannon in March 2008 when Dunauskas felled him with a kick to the head before the pair dragged him up an alleyway where he was subjected to a “vicious and prolonged attack” during which the pair kicked and stamped on him.

Mr Fitzpatrick, who made no secret of the fact he was homosexual, sustained a broken nose and two broken teeth, the bones in the neck were fractured and there were fractures in his voice box; there was also bruising to his upper chest, fractured ribs, and injuries to the back of the head.

Jailing the killers for at least 20 years and ordering their deportation when freed on licence, Mr Justice Hart said he would not “distinguish between them”, and while Dunauskas may have been the main attacker, the fact Balseris had stood smoking close by was “chilling evidence of his callous disregard for their victim.”

In court today District Judge Rosie Watters said given the fact that Dunauskas was a life sentence prisoner the only option open to her was a custodial sentence.

“I can’t add to a life sentence,” said the judge who handed Dunauskas a five month sentence with an order to pay a £25 offender levy.

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