Man stabbed inmate with scissors in jail art class
A SADISTIC thug has been handed an 11 year sentence after stabbing a fellow inmate at HMP Birmingham with a pair of scissors during an art class.
A court heard Kerney Grantham, 25, had a long history of violent offending and was someone who experienced “pleasure in inflicting pain on others”.
He had been serving a six-year sentence for attempted robbery in Birmingham city centre during which he stabbed the victim.
He was also previously jailed for stabbing another inmate and warder – and for shooting two dogs.
Birmingham Crown Court heard the art class attack took place on September 17 last year. “For the previous two weeks the defendant and the complainant had sat next to each other in the same class without a problem,” said Caroline Harris, prosecuting. But Grantham launched the attack “without provocation or warning” and without saying a word. The victim, she said, initially thought someone had just nudged him in the back while he was sitting on his chair.
He turned to see the defendant standing over him. Grantham then stabbed him in the cheek, back and collar bone.
Another inmate told police: “I was terrified. He could have attacked anybody.”
The victim suffered a large cut to his cheek, puncture wound through his tongue and a cut to his back.
Grantham had a long history of offences. In 2014 he prowled a woodland and shot two dogs, injuring them both, one seriously. When his house was searched police found a “chilling” note book about killing and dismembering people.
While serving a jail sentence in December of that year Kearney stabbed another inmate and a prison officer, using a crude weapon he had fashioned himself. He was subsequently sentenced to five years detention with an extended licence of five years. On January 24 last year he was handed a further six-year sentence after attempting to rob a man in Hurst Street, then stabbing him twice in the back.
In passing sentence Judge Avik Mukherjee said: “I am satisfied that you present a significant risk to members of the public of serious harm.
“You have limited insight and remorse and you have repeatedly used weapons both in prison and in public.”