South Yorkshire prisoner attacked inmate with a "shank"

Ben McPherson, aged 23, was serving at HMP Moorland, at Hatfield Woodhouse, near Doncaster, when he used a prison issue-plastic knife which had been sharpened to a point to attack another inmate, according to a Sheffield Crown Court hearing.

Judge David Dixon said: “The message should be loud and clear that this behaviour cannot be tolerated in prisons.”

Andrew Bailey, prosecuting, told the August 19 hearing McPherson targeted an inmate who was talking to another man with whom he had previously had an altercation.

Mr Bailey said a prison officer saw McPherson strike the victim and as she pulled him away he threw an object to the ground and another officer found a plastic, prison-issue knife sharpened to a point.

The victim suffered injuries to his lip and head and had a hole in the mid-rift of his t-shirt.

McPherson told a woman during a phone call he had used a “shank” to stab the victim twice in the face and in the chest and there was “blood spilling out of his face” and as he walked off he had stabbed him again.

The defendant, now of HMP Wayland, Norfolk, who has previous convictions, pleaded guilty to possessing an unauthorised weapon and to assault occasioning actual bodily harm after the attack on February 21, 2019.

Michael Clare, defending, offered no mitigation but referred the judge to notes.

Judge Dixon sentenced McPherson to three-years of custody with a two-year extension having deemed the defendant to be “extremely dangerous”.