Man gets 2 years in prison for assault on Okanagan Correctional officer

A man will serve two years in prison for a vicious assault on an officer at the Okanagan Correctional Centre earlier this year.

Jeffery Kyle Polanski was charged with one count each of aggravated assault and assault on a peace officer for the Feb. 13 incident at Okanagan Correctional.

Polanski pleaded guilty to a lesser count of assault causing bodily harm on June 8, according to court records online and the count of assault on a peace officer was stayed at the end of the sentencing, according to Crown spokesperson Dan McLaughlin.

Crown spokesperson Dan McLaughlin said the court imposed a sentence of 730 days and a 10-year firearm prohibition. That two-year sentence — which edged Polanski into the federal prison system — will be served consecutively to the sentence he is currently serving for a break and enter and commit indictable offence in Vernon on Aug. 6 last year.

Polanski was sentenced for that charge on Feb. 28 this year, just over two weeks after the assault.

The assault was described as particularly vicious by B.C. Government Employees Union vice-president of corrections and sheriffs Dean Purdy.

Purdy said the officer was attacked with a sucker punch and kicked and punched several more times after falling to the ground.

“Had it not been for the fact that another correctional officer was passing through the living unit, we don’t know what would have happened,” Purdy said earlier this year.

It isn’t the only charge to arise from allegations of assaulting a correctional officer since OCC opened up in January 2017.

Afshin Maleki Ighani faces a count of assaulting a peace officer after allegedly attacking a female correctional officer at the jail on March 14, only a month following the Polanski incident.

Ighani is currently in jail on a slew of charges from incidents throughout the South Okanagan-Similkameen and allegedly getting into protective custody and stabbing a pair of inmates.