Any prisoner convicted of a child sex crime is a target for other inmates.
The court may have delivered justice in a case such as Ian Huntley’s, but for some fellow criminals, what’s really needed is revenge – to make you suffer like you made your victims suffer.
From his first day in inside, there was a price on Huntley’s head – not a monetary one, but the promise of “respect” for anyone who attacked him.
Read more: Soham murderer Ian Huntley seriously injured
In the violent world of a top security jail, respect from your fellow cons is everything and there’s nothing quite like hurting a prisoner considered “the lowest of the low”.
An infamous villain once described to me over lunch how he witnessed a planned prison knife attack on a child sex offender, a story he told years later with relish, laughter and no grim detail spared.
Huntley would have been on Rule 43, held in the prison’s unit for vulnerable inmates, mostly sex offenders, but police informants too.
But it’s impossible to fully protect everyone, especially in today’s chaotic jail system with overcrowding and increased violence, alongside the regular departure of disillusioned older warders who are replaced with more inexperienced officers.
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Mark Leech, editor of the Prisons Handbook, said: “The upcoming young thugs in prison see people like Huntley as a way of gaining kudos, especially if they are already serving lengthy sentences.”
If Huntley recovers, he will always be vulnerable to another attack.
Some prisoners have long memories and plenty of time to think.
