A thug who viciously slashed a fellow prisoner described as “man of violence” has been caged for 27 months.
Liam Hogg, 24, left James Frail bleeding heavily from wounds to his ear, head and neck after attacking him with an improvised weapon in HMP Addiewell, West Lothian, last year.
He claimed he jumped his victim because he felt threatened by Frail, who was allegedly threatening violence to him.
Hogg pleaded guilty at Livingston Sheriff Court on Monday to assaulting Frail to his severe injury on 17 July last year by striking him on the head with a sharp implement.
However, the Crown accepted Hogg’s denial that his victim had been scarred for life in the attack.
Roshni Joshi, prosecuting, said one of the prison custody officers had seen the accused approaching James Frail from behind in one of the prison’s wings just before 5pm on the day of the offence.
She said: “The accused grabbed Frail from behind, jumped on his back and slashed him on the right side of his head with an improvised weapon.
“The witness wasn’t able to get a look at the weapon used by the accused and it was not recovered.
“The prison officer pressed her personal alarm and saw the accused run away. Further custody staff entered the wing which was secured.
“Frail was observed to have a wound to the back of his head and to the back of his neck with deep lacerations on the top of his ear, which was bleeding heavily. He was returned to his cell while the prisoners were locked up.”
She said Frail had been taken to St John’s Hospital in Livingston for treatment to superficial cuts to his head and neck.
A 3cm laceration to the top of his right ear which left the cartilage exposed had to be closed with surgical glue and steri-strips.
Frail refused to give a statement to police about what had happened, she said.
Meanwhile, Ms Joshni said, custody officers went to Hogg’s cell in Addiewell and he admitted to being involved in the assault and was moved to the segregation unit.
Hogg’s lawyer said it had been apparent that there was a difficulty between the two men as soon as they were moved into the same hall at Addiewell.
He said Friel was much larger than the accused and Hogg had heard through third parties that the complainer had been making threats to assault him.
He went on: “He felt intimidated, but he made no attempt to deal with the situation without resorting to violence and he apologises for his actions.
“Witness statements show that Mr Fail told staff at the time that he’d sustained the injuries in a fall, which was clearly a lie.
“Mr Hogg tells me the gentleman in question is subject to a lifelong restriction order for violence.
“Although none of that excuses what he has done, the complainer is himself a man of violence.”
He said Hogg would have been eligible for release from a previous sentence for assault on 25 April this year but had been remanded in custody for the current offence since 9 September last year.
Passing sentence, Sheriff Peter Hammond told Hogg: “Clearly this was a serious assault on another fellow prisoner which caused serious injury to him by using a weapon.
“I take into account you pleaded guilty at the stage you did and that a significant aggravation has been deleted from the charge, however, the only appropriate disposal is a custodial one.”
He jailed Hogg for 27 months but backdated the sentence to September 9 last year when he was first remanded in custody.
Hogg was caged for four years in 2018 after he and two other thugs branded “The Three Musketeers” were convicted of scarring a pair of St Andrews University students for life with broken bottles in a drunken attack.
Frail, 42, who is subject to a lifelong restriction order for trying to rob an Edinburgh hotel, has 85 previous convictions for violence and dishonesty.
He was warned he may never be freed from prison after he was convicted of carrying out the masked terror raid at the Apex Hotel, Haymarket.
He was found guilty of assaulting workers Mariola Kozlowska and another woman on January 26, 2018, just nine days after he had been released from prison.
Frail was previously jailed for 12 years in 2008 for a string of robberies that brought terror to the city and resulted in a bookmaker’s employee being wounded.
