THE inmate involved in a fling with a prison nurse was a "monstrous" thug from Darlington who was jailed for 12 years for a "barbaric" attack on an Iraq veteran, it has emerged.

Soldier Christopher Hall was left temporarily blinded in one eye and with a deep gash across his head which may have been caused by a bottle, a court heard in 2012.

The 43-year-old victim described the traumatic ordeal as being worse than the horrors of war.

Prison nurse Ashleigh Naylor, 30, fell for one of the attackers, Paul Lane, while he was serving his sentence in HMP Holme House in Stockton.

As The Northern Echo reported yesterday, Naylor later started to send him codes so that he could use a mobile phone which had been illegally smuggled into prison.

Her fling was discovered when a colleague visited her home when she was drunk and she blurted out her secret, Teesside Crown Court was told.

The officer then discovered photographs of the couple on Naylor's Facebook page and reported his findings to bosses.

At that time, in October last year, Lane was in HMP Kirkham, an open prison in Lancashire, and his release was imminent.

Judge Armstrong told Naylor that her "behaviour was not just frowned upon, but completely illegal".

She admitted aiding and abetting the unauthorised possession of a device in prison, and was given a 12-month suspended sentence.

Lane's violent past was not mentioned but the same court in 2012 heard how he and an accomplice left their innocent victim for dead in the street.

He suffered a deep slash across his forehead and a badly-swollen face after being smashed in the face – possibly with a bottle – and repeatedly kicked on the ground.

Mr Hall, who served with the Army in Iraq, said in a statement that he had witnessed the horrors of war, but nothing compared to his ordeal on the streets of Darlington.

Lane, 27, landed the first blows after telling Mr Hall “I’m going to bottle you”. The other man received ten years.

A third man was given a 12-month prison term, suspended for two years.

Carl Swift, for painter and decorator Lane, said: “He accepts it was a monstrous and cowardly attack and he will be going to prison for a long time as a consequence.”