Claire Alexandra Reid: Albany woman who threw boiling water at fellow prison inmate’s face handed jail term

An Albany woman who threw a coffee maker full of boiling water at a fellow Melaleuca Women’s Prison inmate’s face, leaving the victim in hospital at Fiona Stanley with serious burns, has been jailed. Claire Alexandra Reid, 32, appeared in Albany Magistrates Court on January 27 via video link from Bandyup Women’s Prison for sentencing on eight charges including assault occasioning bodily harm, stealing and failing to comply with a prohibition order. Police prosecutor Sgt Warrick Walker told the court Reid threw a portable coffee maker full of boiling water at a fellow inmate while in Melaleuca prison in June last year. He said Reid picked up the coffee maker in the kitchen and took it to the laundry, where the victim was folding clothes, and threw the open pot directly at her face, scalding the left side of her face including her lips and forehead, as well as her neck and chest. The victim had to be transported to Fiona Stanley Hospital’s burns unit for emergency treatment of the serious burns. Sgt Walker said the violent act was an unprovoked assault and that Reid had used a “circumstantial” weapon to inflict serious harm. Prosecution added Reid also stole alcohol from three separate Albany liquor stores in Spencer Park, the Albany CBD, and Dog Rock, and that she had entered all three stores while a prohibition order was in place against her, not due to expire until January 2027. Defence lawyer Jamie Archer said Reid had managed to access methamphetamine while in prison and was highly paranoid. He said her paranoia became fixated on the victim and said Reid now felt “very guilty” about her actions and harming the other inmate. Mr Archer also mentioned Reid had only recently been sentenced in the Perth District Court to one year and 10 months behind bars for an attempted armed robbery of an Albany pharmacy. He asked Magistrate Rosemarie Myers to take the totality of her sentence into account when imposing any additional jail time. Ms Myers sentenced Reid to four months’ jail, on top of her District Court sentence, noting that if she had not already been sentenced by the higher court, the jail sentence would have been much longer. She was also handed a global fine of $1000 for the stealing and failing to comply with a prohibition notice.