Edmund Burge prosecuted Samuel Hall who today pleaded guilty at Maidstone Crown Court to attempted murder. Hall was a 20-year old imate at Rochester YOI when he met the victim, a fellow inmate. Thinking that the victim had shown him a lack of respect he decided to kill him, and for that purpose made an improvised knife from a razor blade fused to a plastic handle. On the pretext of selling him some cannabis, he lured the victim into a cell and then attacked him with the knife, slashing his throat, face and head. He later told police that he hadn’t wanted to attack the victim, but that he had had to as he felt he had been taken for “an idiot” – killing the victim was the only way to deal with such a situation. He later told prison officers that he had heard voices in his head that he thought were the victim, and that killing him would be a way of stopping the voices. At Court he asked the judge to be sentenced immediately, but HHJ Carey directed the production of psychiatric and probation reports to deal with the question of dangerousness. Sentence will take place in September.
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