A court has sentenced a man who assaulted, locked in a B.C. corrections officer, and danced afterward.

The incident resulted in one of the officers’ fingers getting severed when the cell door was slammed on him by the prisoner.

The inmate, Gopal Figueredo, was recorded on video doing what was described during the trial as a celebratory dance after he locked in the officer.

Figueredo will serve a two-year sentence in addition to the more than 14-year jail time he got for other offences prior to the prison incident.

These crimes include kidnapping, extortion, manslaughter, and aggravated assault.

An oral reasons for sentence in connection with the jail assault was rendered by Justice Peter Edelmann, and this was posted on the B.C. Supreme Court website Thursday (April 2).

Edelmann recalled that the attack happened at the Surrey Pretrial Services Centre on January 2, 2018.

Corrections officer Cody Fenske came to deliver a meal to Figueredo’s cell, and was attacked.

“He struck the officer multiple times in the face and head and the officer went to the ground,” Edelmann related.

As Fenske was getting up, Figueredo “backed out of the cell and slammed the cell door, which caused the officer to be locked inside”.

“Mr. Figueredo then proceeded to engage in what the Crown has quite fairly described as a celebratory dance,” Edelmann recalled.

The consequences of the assault were serious.

“Two of Mr. Fenske's fingers were caught in the cell door when Mr. Figueredo slammed it shut, splitting the officer's middle finger and severing approximately half an inch of his ring finger,” Edelmann said.

On August 18, 2019, Figueredo was sentenced by a court to 18 years imprisonment for various offences prior to the jail attack, “including kidnapping, extortion, manslaughter and aggravated assault”.

“After credit for presentence custody that left 14 years, seven months and one day to be served in relation to those offences; he is currently serving that sentence,” Edelmann said.

Edelmann also cited another justice’s summary of Figueredo’s criminal history, which included ramming a police car in 2010.

One of the officers in the car fractured a hip.

Going back to the jail assault, Edelmann noted that Figueredo said that he did not know the officer's fingers were in the door when he slammed it.

“He has written a letter to the court and to the officer expressing remorse for his conduct and the consequences that resulted,” according to Edelmann. “He also expressed remorse in person before the court.:

While Edelmann accepted that the man is “remorseful and did not intentionally sever the officer's fingers, Mr. Figueredo remains responsible for the consequence of an unprovoked and violent assault”.