A father of five was jailed for four years yesterday for his part in a beating of an off-duty prison officer who suffered permanent vision loss.

Shannon O?Brien Tuzo, 30, of Marsh Lane, told the court he was sorry for the attack on Craig Randall Clarke, a 33-year-old Westgate corrections officer from Devonshire.

Mr. Clarke was attacked by three men after he offered condolences to a fourth man, Troy Rawlings, about the death of his brother Steven ?Pepe? Dill in prison.

Assistant Justice Archibald Warner told Tuzo his was a ?vicious and unprovoked attack?.

He said: ?I am of the view that the reason for the attack was the victim was a prison officer.

?He was associated mainly by his job with the death of an inmate at the prison facility.

?I view this as an attack on a person involved in the criminal justice system.

?This type of attack must be frowned on by the courts. The courts have a duty to make it clear this type of behaviour must not be tolerated.?

Tuzo was sentenced to four years with time spent in custody taken into consideration for causing grievous bodily harm with intent.

However, Mr. Clarke told he was unhappy with the sentence.

He said: ?Young people in this country, especially young, black males feel they can run amok.

?This makes a mockery of the judicial system.?

In a victim impact statement read to the court earlier Mr. Clarke said his savage beating by three men on January 1 last year had changed his life forever and made him angry.

He said the brutal, unprovoked attack had made him 70 percent blind in his right eye and had relegated him to low risk tasks in prison which slashed his chances of overtime while making his job increasingly perilous.

He said: ?I have lost thousands of dollars.?

Shaki Eugene Crockwell, 21, of Happy Valley Road, Pembroke, has already admitted causing grievous bodily harm to Clarke and will be sentenced at a later date for the offence which carries a maximum five-year jail term.

On Tuesday Mr. Warner ordered the acquittal of a third man ? Raymond Winslow Burgess, 25 ? who along with Tuzo had pleaded not guilty to causing grievous bodily harm with intent to Mr. Clarke.

Mr. Clarke said: ?The courts also have to take a closer look at the rights of the victims in vicious crimes, in this case there where three perpetrators but only two will face the consequences of their actions.

?This indeed may satisfy some but the victim is left wondering what went wrong.

?Too often in the Bermuda judiciary cases have failed to go before the jury, this in my case violates the rights of the victim, it seems too often that the defendant rights are greater than the rights of the victim.?

The court heard Tuzo had been given a six-month jail sentence suspended for two years in 1997 for grievous bodily harm and had been fined in 1998 for assault.