Two violent criminals are to spend years behind bars for their part in a brutal attack on one of Northamptonshire’s most evil and sadistic killers.
Baby murderer Andrew Randall was attacked in his cell in HMP Long Lartin prison, in Worcestershire, in August 2011, in a vicious assault that saw his throat slit and both his eyes stabbed.
He was attacked with a sharpened paint brush and a blade fashioned from a melted razor and a toothbrush.
Randall, formerly of Havelock Street, Kettering, tortured, sexually abused and finally murdered his seven-week-old daughter, Jessica, in 2005. He kicked the baby across the floor, stamped on her chest, pulled her legs and arms, and put his fingers down her throat as part of his torrid abuse.
In jail, he was attacked by Jason Jay, a fellow inmate at the category A prison, who has already pleaded guilty to three charges, including attempted murder.
On Tuesday, Patrick Maughan, aged 35, and Arthur Pitt-Pladdy, aged 41, were convicted of assisting the attempted murder. A jury at Northampton Crown Court ruled they kept watch during the attack and turned off an alarm outside Randall’s cell.
Maughan, who was originally jailed for robbery, was sentenced to an indeterminate prison sentence for public protection after he attacked another prisoner in 2009.
On Tuesday, he was sentenced to an extended sentence, totalling 10 years.
Pitt-Pladdy, who is already serving life for murder, was given five years, to be served consecutively to his original jail term. The “chronic alcoholic” was jailed for a minimum of 17 years in 2009 after he stabbed his partner 177 times.
Judge Rupert Mayo told both men he rejected their pleas that they had nothing to do with the attack.
He said Maughan would have known about the attack as he was a friend of Jay.
The judge said Maughan’s involvement “lasted some time longer and was rather more sophisticated” than Pitt-Pladdy’s. He told Pitt-Pladdy, who refused to go to court to hear his sentence, he looked through the cell window and saw the attack then “lurked” on the landing.