A notorious criminal who claimed to have turned his life around is due back in court next month.
Jonathan Turley, who has a long line of convictions for violent attacks, was released from prison last year and in an interview shortly afterwards with the Sunday World said he was “living proof you can change”.
However, within weeks of the interview, Turley was back in jail and is now due in court next month charged with assaulting a prison officer.
The attack is alleged to have happened at Magilligan jail in Co. Derry in September 2023, just weeks after 43-year-old Turley landed back in prison.
It is the latest twist in the Belfast man’s chaotic and violent life.
Turley was jailed for five years in 2022 for an horrific attack in Belfast, during which he bit off part of a taxi driver’s ear.
He had been extradited back to Northern Ireland from Thailand to face charges over the 2014 attack.
A court was told the driver had picked Turley up in Belfast.
However, the cabbie, who suspected the man he had just picked up was not the person who had made the booking, asked Turley the name the taxi had been ordered under.
Not happy with his response, the driver then asked Turley to get out of the vehicle.
The thug replied “how about I throw you out of the car” and punched the driver several times, before leaning forward and biting part of his right ear off.
The injured driver had to undergo specialised plastic surgery but a partial DNA hit later led detectives to Turley, who is originally from north Belfast.
His 2022 conviction was the latest in Turley’s extensive criminal record.
In 2008, he was jailed for ten years for stabbing a man five times.
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A court was told Turley was at a party when he became angry after his victim mistook his scarf for a towel and mopped his head with it.
Turley was enraged at this and a fight broke out.
A court heard how Turley then attacked his victim with a kitchen knife, stabbing him five times in the upper body.
He was released from prison in March 2014 but rearrested later that year following a high-speed chase and charged with kidnapping and beating his partner.
In May 2015, Turley was granted compassionate bail for eight hours to visit someone in hospital.
Police, who had described Turley as a “danger to the public”, were opposed to his bail application.
However, a communication breakdown meant no officer was in court to oppose the bail application.
Police concerns about Turley were proven to be right when he failed to return to prison.
After some time on the run, he settled in Cork where he started a new life with a woman who did not know about his violent past.
In 2016, he was arrested by gardaí in Cork on domestic abuse charges against that woman, and a computer check confirmed he was wanted in Northern Ireland.
He was extradited across the border and jailed for 22 months in May 2017 for the attack on his former partner in Belfast.
After being released from prison once again, Turley moved to Thailand but the PSNI later issued a warrant for his arrest in connection with the 2014 attack on the taxi driver.
He was arrested in Bangkok in July 2019 at the behest of the British Embassy.
Reports from Thailand at the time said local police had described Turley was a “tricky character” to arrest.
It was claimed he had changed his address in Bangkok and northern Thailand several times to stay ahead of the police.
They eventually nabbed him after learning that he had an interest in Muay Thai kickboxing.
Thai police were then able to track Turley to a house in Bangkok where he had been living there with his Thai girlfriend.
In the Sunday World interview last year after he was released from prison, Turley described himself as a “man of peace”.
He said his intention was to dissuade others from following his path into crime.
“It’s not what it looks like, young people see the money and the cars and the girls, but you spend your life looking over your shoulder.
“I’m living proof that you can change,” added Turley.