BLUDGEONED to death with a crowbar and eyes gouged out with pens – life behind bars can come with brutal extra punishment for the world’s most depraved monsters.
Now, a prison insider has revealed the brutal reality of surviving inside Britain’s toughest jails, and what turns notorious inmates into ‘marked men’ killed for as little as a tenner – or a stick of pornography.
On Saturday, it was revealed that Lostprophets singer Ian Watkins, 48, had been stabbed to death in HMP Wakefield 12 years after being jailed for a string of child sex offences. Two prisoners have now been arrested and charged with murder.
While the disgraced musician is the most high-profile inmate to be killed in a UK jail in living memory, notorious beasts from the Yorkshire Ripper to child killers have faced the brutal consequences of so-called ‘prison justice’ in years gone by.
Reformed drug baron Stuart Reid, who spent 10 years in Category A prisons, has witnessed such horrifying attacks first-hand.
He says that as well as being sparked by personal vendettas, they can be simply ‘commissioned’ in return for shockingly measly amounts of drugs or cash – with prison officers powerless to prevent bloodshed.
He tells The Sun: “I once witnessed a guy get stabbed 47 times and his attacker was paid a £10 ‘bagel’ – a bag of heroin – to do it. That’s life in prison for you.
“If you have lifers in there with huge rap sheets, not those doing three or four years, they have nothing to lose. What’s the worst they can do to them?
“I remember a prisoner once telling an officer, ‘Stop p***ing me off because if you don’t I’ll just stab you to death. What’s the worst thing you can do? Take my TV off me?’
“Normally attacks would be paid for with drugs, typically narcotics. There’s not a lot to do and you want drugs to take your mind out of that place.
“Other times it’s money, which is sent to one of their relatives. That money slowly re-enters the prison through payments into the prisoner’s accounts.”
Stuart suspects attacks over the past few decades are chiefly a consequence of budget cutbacks, which can prove a double-edged sword.
Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe was stabbed twice in the faceNotable deadly incidents in recent times have seen inmates fashion shanks from toothbrushes, while others have used chair legs and even stones from an aquarium.
Stuart, who wrote memoir 10 Years a Cat A, says: “If you’ve got determined individuals on the outside or inside, they will find a time and place to attack or kill someone.
“They will be successful too. What are you going to do when you’re in your cell and they walk in, push the door shut and staff haven’t seen them? That’s it. Where can you run?
“In some prisons, the problem is a lack of staff due to cutbacks and a lack of funding. It means officers can’t get all of their ‘bolts and bars’ – prison searches – done and search cells for hidden weapons.
“Prison cutbacks have a follow-on effect. The less time prisoners have outside their cells, the more their frustration builds, their mindset changes and they may be tempted by an offer to kill someone.”
‘Marked men’
Subhan Anwar tortured and killed his girlfriend’s two-year-old daughter, before being murdered behind bars West Midlands PoliceChild killer Sidonio Teixeira was beaten to death with a sock containing a rock[/caption]Over the years, several high-profile lags have been fatally attacked or left brutally disfigured by their fellow inmates.
Back in 2013, Subhan Anwar, who tortured and murdered his girlfriend’s two-year-old daughter, was found dead in his cell having been strangled with bedsheets.
Previously, the child killer had locked his victim in a cupboard for days, beat her with belts and subjected her to such vicious attacks she was left with more than 100 injuries.
Anwar’s attackers were both serving life sentences. As was Victor Castigador, who murdered another child-abusing lag in HMP Long Lartin, in 2016, and defiantly claimed: “You have to punish evil.”
He considered himself “something of an enforcer” and longed to end the life of “horrible man and bully” Sidonio Teixeira. Castigador even boasted he would have “killed him again” if he survived.
Teixeira was serving life for murdering his daughter, three, and attempting to kill his son, nine, when Castigador put a fish tank stone inside a sock and smashed his skull to pieces.
I once met a double-lifer, so he was never getting out, who tried to kill Roy Whiting – who murdered Sarah Payne. He didn’t care about the consequences
Stuart ReidIn another savage incident, Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe was stabbed twice in the face while in Broadmoor.
He was blinded in one eye after a patient attacked him with a pen in 1997 and 10 years later, another tried to get the other one with a metal cutlery knife.
Stuart tells us these types of villains can be ‘marked men or women’ in prison and – especially if incentivised with drugs or cash – lifers will need little persuasion to carry out a hit.
He says: “I once met a double-lifer, so he was never getting out, who tried to kill Roy Whiting – who murdered Sarah Payne.
“He didn’t care about the consequences. Those types of people always have targets on their backs in the justice system and always will.
“If you’ve raped or killed a child, you’re a sexual deviant or have molested people, you’re the worst of the worst and have to be on guard at all times.”
These types of notorious prisoners are sometimes put on a protection wing or a VP – vulnerable person – wing, but not all prisons have those facilities.
Stuart adds: “If you don’t have a protection wing, everyone is mixing with everyone else and that can be highly dangerous. When things go wrong in prison, they go proper wrong.”
Rich pickings
Even well-off lags aren’t necessarily safe.
While some will pay their fellow inmates Mafia-style ‘protection money’ to stave off danger, sometimes it’s actually this wealth that makes them a target in the first place.
Stuart says: “If you’ve got access to money and you’re in prison, you can get virtually anything and have everything done for you and done to help you.
“But at the same time, if you’ve got access to all of that or drugs, other people will want to take that away from you too.
“Some people who deal drugs in prison may also use the money you’ve paid them to get back at you or to steal whatever you have.
“That’s where those types of arrangements can go badly very quickly for someone. For instance, if you’ve got a stash of narcotics, they may pay two prisoners to rob you.”
A lack of staff, cutbacks, a lot of frustration bubbling below the surface and decades in prison, what do you expect?
Stuart ReidIt doesn’t need to be drugs either. Coveted privileges can be something as simple as access to USB sticks containing pornography or new films and TV series, which in Stuart’s day cost around £500-a-pop.
“You can’t watch anything 18-certification in prison or view any 18+ content, which is laughable really but that’s the law,” he says.
“You want to watch something other than normal TV but you don’t have Netflix, Sky or Amazon Prime.
“It helps to while away the time. Otherwise you’ll end up being a gym bunny or a druggie, because what other options are there for you?”
Other times ‘prison justice’ can take the form of a revenge attack or be carried out after an inmate upsets the wrong people – inside or outside of bars.
Stuart adds: “I knew a prisoner who had a £20,000 contract on his head, as part of a personal vendetta. Once you’re in prison, where are you going to hide?
PSG / eyevineSerial killer Jeffrey Dahmer was beaten to death by a lag who felt he was an ‘abomination’[/caption] APMobster James ‘Whitey’ Bulger was found dead with his eyes gouged out just hours after a prison transfer[/caption]Monsters slain
These brutal attacks are far from unique to the UK either.
In 1994, Jeffrey Dahmer, known as the Milwaukee Cannibal, was bludgeoned to death with a metal bar by a lag, while left unsupervised as he cleaned the toilets.
Christopher Scarver carried out the attack believing he was acting on behalf of God and felt the serial killer was an “abomination”.
Dahmer, whose life was turned into a hit Netflix drama, brutally murdered 17 young boys – many of whom he dismembered, sexually assaulted and cannibalised.
Similarly Donald Harvey, the self-proclaimed Angel of Death who poisoned and suffocated at least 37 patients under his care, was beaten to death with a blunt instrument in March 2017.
Boston mobster James ‘Whitey’ Bulger, responsible for 11 murders, was fatally battered with a lock attached to a belt, known as a “lock-in-the-sock”, just hours after transferring to a high-security prison.
His face was unrecognisable and his eyes gouged out when guards discovered him in 2018. It was believed to be a revenge attack for ratting out other gangsters to the FBI.
Reformed Brit crook Stuart, who was released in 2023 after running a £1.3million drugs empire, believes increasing funding for prisons is the only realistic way to crack down on such attacks.
He adds: “A lack of staff, cutbacks, a lot of frustration bubbling below the surface and decades in prison, what else do you expect?”
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