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PROSECUTORS have lodged an appeal against the community-based sentence handed to a man who violently bashed four prison guards at Cessnock.

The penalty handed to Cameron Welsh by local court magistrate Robyn Richardson last week sparked a statewide strike, with the union representing prison workers slamming it as a "slap on the wrist".

The 26-year-old man was sentenced to a three-year good behaviour order, which is served in the community, for assaulting four prison officers in February while he was serving time on unrelated charges.

Union members from Cessnock Correctional Centre, followed by guards from each of the state's 35 other jails, walked off the job on October 30 to protest the outcome .

An application was made for the sentencing proceedings to be

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