A serial criminal jugged a friend in Canberra's jail while she was conducting a Narcotics Anonymous meeting in an "appalling" crime, a judge has said.
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"The victim did not deserve what happened at her [and] the women at the Alexander Maconochie Centre did not deserve to lose their NA meetings which could have changed their lives for the better," Justice Chrissa Loukas-Karlsson said on Wednesday.
The offender, Rebecca Katherine Krutsky, 52, was sentenced in the ACT Supreme Court to more than 11 months behind bars.
The sentence was backdated to take time already served into account, meaning Krutsky will be eligible for release in September 2024.
In 2022, Krutsky poured two cups of boiled water on the volunteer, who suffered burns to her chest and neck.
After a judge-alone trial last year, Krutsky was found guilty of recklessly inflicting actual bodily harm.
The court previously heard Krutsky and the victim had become friends with her while both women were imprisoned.
When the victim was released from jail, she decided to turn her life around and stop using drugs.
She then spent four years trying to organise Narcotics Anonymous meetings for female prisoners.
This is all came to an end in November 2022, when Krutsky poured boiling hot tea on her friend, who initially thought the other woman was approaching to give her a hug.
Krutsky was in jail after purposefully driving at two pedestrians before she crashed into a garage door.
On Wednesday, Justice Loukas-Karlsson said Krutsky had expressed remorse "as well as her desire to apologise to the victim and to participate in restorative justice".
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In a letter to the court, Krutsky said: "I feel a moral need and desire to apologise to the victim personally ... I'm sincere in my apology as we'd been friends prior to that day."
The judge said that since the crime Krutsky had been described as a "model prisoner" and displayed a good work ethic while working at the jail's bakery.
Speaking directly to Krutsky, Justice Loukas-Karlsson said: "You know as well as I do that you must never do anything like this again. What you did to this young woman was appalling."
"You have been able to rehabilitate yourself in prison, but now it's time for you to show your family, the court, the community, that you can rehabilitate yourself outside in the community," she stated.
