HMP Garth inmate created four homemade prison weapons - one featured 13 razor blades

Dean Jones was charged after prison officers found his creations in his cell at HMP Garth in Ulnes Walton.

Preston Crown Court heard his cell was searched on two occasions.

On May 22, staff found a plastic nail brush handle with 13 razor blades taped to it, and a serrated blade attached to a makeshift handle.

In a further inspection on June 7, officers found a thin metal bar 20cm in length which has been sharpened to point at one end and fixed with a wing nut at the other.

They also found a makeshift handle with three razor blades taped to it.

Jones, who was jailed for 12 years in 2017 for a stabbing in Newcastle, was due to be released in 2023, but will now only be released in 2025, after Judge Sara Dodd, sitting at Preston Crown Court, ruled his jail term must be consecutive to the term he is serving.

In an inspection report in December 2018, the prison’s own data suggested that the level of violence was lower than in some other similar category B training prisons and there had been a reduction in the number of violent incidents during the previous year.

In the previous six months, the prison had reported 119 violent incidents, 35 of which were assaults on staff and 48 assaults on prisoners; 36 were fights.

Although the number remained high, it had not increased since the previous inspection, but there had been at least 20 serious injuries. But the HM Chief Inspector of Prisons said too many incidents were serious and involved weapons.

In November, violent Garth convict Mark Coulburn, 30, was sentenced to life imprisonment after being found guilty of stabbing fellow inmate, Billy Moriarty, with homemade bladed weapon as the pair queued at a ‘treatment hatch’ for medication.