A VIOLENT convicted rapist repeatedly stabbed a fellow inmate in a frenzied attack with a chisel has been jailed for life.

David Allan launched the unprovoked attack after he ‘woke up in a bad mood’ while serving 16 years for rape.

His victim Emanuel Spitari, who is serving 23 years in prison for child sex offences, was stabbed in the neck – missing his spinal column and a main artery by millimetres – during the attack in a prison workshop.

Teesside Crown Court heard how Allan stabbed Spitari six times in a swift, brutal attack which he later admitted he didn’t care if his victim died or not.

Shaun Dodds, prosecuting, said Allan had attacked fellow inmates on previous occasions including slashing one across the face with a makeshift blade and stabbing two other men with scissors.

However, it was his latest violent outburst whilst behind bars that came the closest to being fatal, the court heard.

Mr Dodds told the court that the victim didn’t believe that he had any enemies in the prison and was left ‘completely shocked’ by the attack.

A report into Spitari’s injuries was carried out with Mr Dodds saying: “In relation to the stab wound high on the back of the neck, if the blade had been one centimetre to the right and severed the spinal cord, death would have occurred, potentially instantaneously.”

In his police interview the court was told Allan ‘just didn’t like the guy’. Reading from the interview notes, the barrister added: “He p***ed me off about a week ago and I woke up in a bad mood, so today was his day. I wasn’t intending to kill him – I wanted to hurt him – but if he had died it wouldn’t have bothered me in the slightest.

“They told me the last time I was court that the next time you come before you will be getting a life sentence, so that’s why I didn’t really care if he died or not.

“It will probably not be the last maybe the next one will die.”

Mr Dodds said the victim, previously of Yarm, Thornaby and Darlington, was still in a wheelchair following the attack in October last year and is not expected to be able to walk for at least a year.

The court heard that Allan had pleaded guilty to causing grievous bodily harm with intent but denied a charge of attempted murder.

He also pleaded guilty in February to the scissor attack on two men while serving time at HMP Parkhurst on the Isle of White in December 2017.

In mitigation, his barrister Elisabeth Bussey-Jones said her client now regretted his violent attack saying Allan was struggling in the prison environment due to his protests of innocence in connection his rape conviction.

Judge Stephen Ashurst jailed Allan for two years for the attacks in HMP Parkhurst and gave him a life sentence, with a minimum term of five years, for the attack in HMP Frankland.

“The attack was swift and sustained, when you stabbed him he fell to the floor and you managed to deliver five or six further blows and inflict potentially lethal injuries upon him,” he said.

“Your response when interviewed provides very powerful evidence base to assess how dangerous you are.”