Two murderers have admitted a knife attack on child killer Roy Whiting after he was stabbed and beaten to within an inch of life and left cowering under the bed of his cell.
The 61-year-old is serving a life sentence for the abduction and murder of eight-year-old Sarah Payne in West Sussex in 2000.
Whiting was punched and kicked in the head and stabbed multiple times in the torso with makeshift blades at Wakefield prison in Yorkshire in November 8, 2018.
He crawled under his bed during the onslaught and was saved by a nurse after prison guards stormed into the room with batons to haul the pair of attackers off him.
Details of the attack were revealed by The Sun after convicted murderers Richard Prendergast, 40, and Kevin Hyden, also 40, admitted wounding with intent via video link at Leeds Crown Court.
An undated photograph of Roy Whiting, 61, who is serving a life sentence for the abduction and murder of eight-year-old Sarah Payne in 2000
Kevin Hyden (left) and Richard Prendergast (right), both 40, admitted wounding with intent at Leeds Crown Court
Whiting told the court in a statement that he had been sitting down when ‘two inmates came rushing into my cell with raised arms shouting ‘you f****ing nonce.”
He continued: ‘The two immediately began to stab and punch me to my head and body.’
One of the attackers allegedly told the other ‘stab him, stab him, get him in the neck.’
Whiting told the court that at first he couldn’t feel anything due to the adrenaline and quickly dropped to the floor.
‘I crawled under my bed for protection from the assault.’ Whiting said.
‘I looked down at the floor and I was laid in a pool of my own blood. It was everywhere.’
Whiting was jailed for life in December 2001 for the murder of eight-year-old Sarah Payne (pictured)
A prison guard who intervened said that he was ‘100 percent’ certain that if he and his colleagues hadn’t entered the cell Whiting would have been killed.
‘The perpetrators did not stop stabbing Whiting until we managed to force open the door.’ The officer stated.
A nurse who arrived to treat the child killer said he wasn’t breathing and so she inserted a tube into his airway.
She told the court that this action saved his life.
‘I do believe that my actions on this day did save Roy Whiting’s life, due to the severity of the injuries he had received and the quick response having qualified medics on the scene.’ The nurse said in a statement.
Whiting was rushed to Leeds General Infirmary where he was treated in A&E before being taken into the specialist trauma unit.
After CT scans to check the depth of his stab wounds, Whiting was patched up and later discharged.
Roy Whiting (pictured), of Crawley, Sussex, abducted and murdered eight-year-old schoolgirl Sarah Payne in July 2000
Whiting has suffered several attacks behind bars since he was jailed for life in 2001 and said in his statement he was used to other inmates calling him ‘nonce, paedophile and baby killer.’
Whiting abducted Sarah Payne as she played hide and seek with her brothers in a cornfield near her grandparents’ home in Kingston Gorse, West Sussex, in July 2000.
Her body was found in a field around 15 miles from where she disappeared.
He was convicted in 2001 at Lewes Crown Court and sentenced to a minimum of 40 years imprisonment.
Whiting, a former mechanic, has previously been slashed with a razor and stabbed with a sharpened toilet brush in various attacks.
In 2017, he was battered with a flask by another prisoner.
Last year, it was reported that Whiting had complained he was a ‘dead man walking’ and had demanded £10,000 compensation from the prison for not protecting him.
HMP Wakefield (pictured) is a Category A jail and home to some of the country’s most notorious convicts, including former Lost Prophets frontman Ian Watkins
Hyden was jailed in 2015 for at least 32 years after he was found guilty of murdering Davinia Loynton, 59, in Wellington, Shropshire.
He beat her to death with a hammer after torturing her for her PIN number.
Prendergast was jailed for a minimum of 19 years in October 2018. He stabbed Lee Moody, 44, to death after mistakenly believing he had stolen his mobile phone.
A CPS spokesman told The Sun: ‘We are satisfied these pleas to section 18 assault not only reflect the criminality but also provide the court with adequate sentencing powers to address this serious offence.’
Grievous bodily harm or wounding with intent is the most serious form of assault short of attempted murder.
The maximum sentence for section 18 is life imprisonment.