Inmate sentenced for Mark Bridger attack

At a previous hearing, Juvinal Ferreira admitted wounding with intent

A prisoner who attacked child killer Mark Bridger to try to get him to say where April Jones's body was hidden has been given a second life term.

Convicted murderer and rapist Juvinal Ferreira, 24, attacked Bridger with a knife fashioned out of a razor at Wakefield Prison in July.

As well as the second life sentence, a judge ordered Ferreira's minimum term to be increased by five years.

Bridger, from Machynlleth in Powys, was jailed for life for murder in May.

Leeds Crown Court heard Ferreira and other life prisoners had talked about attacking Bridger to make him reveal the whereabouts of five-year-old April's body.

The attack happened three days after Bridger was allowed to associate with other prisoners.

Jonathan Sharp, prosecuting, said: "The defendant saw him and walked directly up to him with the blade held between thumb and forefinger.

"He then slashed him down the face, causing a deep wound extending from the temple to the chin.

"He paused for a moment and looked Bridger directly in the eyes, in Bridger's own words 'as if to admire his work or show me who it was'."

'Closure for family'

The court was told the child killer required more than 30 stitches to the wound and will be scarred for life.

Ferreira, who was born in Guinea and grew up in Gambia, admitted wounding with intent at a previous hearing.

Mr Justice Coulson, who sentenced Ferreira via videolink, said the motive for the attack was no mitigation.

"Convicted murderers cannot appoint themselves as unpaid investigators of another crime, no matter how serious. They plainly cannot do that by themselves committing violent crime to do so."

Robin Frieze, mitigating, said Ferreira did not attack Bridger to enhance his own status in prison, for reward or because he was incited to do it.

Mark Bridger was given a whole-life sentence for the abduction and murder of April Jones

"He does not suggest he was put up to it, but he listened to talk within the prison and he was under the impression that if he put the complainant in a state of fear then it was more likely it would achieve closure for the family of his victim."

The court was told Ferreira arrived in the UK in 2007 with his mother. In April 2008 he raped and murdered 47-year-old Elaine Walpole in Dereham, Norfolk.

In 2009 he was jailed for life with a minimum term of 22 years and was recommended for deportation after his sentence was served.

The judge said his sentence for slashing Bridger had to be consecutive if it was to have any deterrent effect.

He said: "Life prisoners cannot go around attacking each other with impunity."

April Jones was abducted by Bridger while playing near her home in Machynlleth, Powys, last October, sparking the biggest missing person search in UK police history.

Bridger was given a whole-life tariff by a judge in May at Mold Crown Court. The five-year-old's body has never been found.