Woman accused of razor blade attack on killer

A WOMAN is to stand trial accused of attacking killer mother Theresa Riggi with a razor blade in Scotland’s only all-female prison.

Angela Hamilton is alleged to have disfigured Riggi for life by slashing her face with the blade.

She allegedly pulled her hair and repeatedly struck her face and head with the blade during an attack in Riggi's cell at Cornton Vale Prison, near Stirling, on November 19 2011.

Riggi, 49, originally from California, who is serving 16 years at the prison after admitting to stabbing her three young children at their home in west Edinburgh, had to be rushed to hospital after the attack.

Hamilton, 40, a patient in a psychiatric ward at Leverndale Hospital in Glasgow, yesterday denied the charge against her and is to stand trial by jury at Falkirk Sheriff Court next week.

Riggi killed her three children in August 2010.

She then allegedly tried to cover up their deaths with a gas explosion, before trying to kill herself by leaping out of their secondfloor flat.

She had moved to the capital with her children following the break-up of her marriage to their father Pasquale Riggi.

The High Court in Edinburgh heard that Riggi had been a protective mother who was involved in a custody battle with her estranged husband over access to the children.

Riggi was originally charged with murder but later admitted culpable homicide on the grounds of diminished responsibility.

Theresa Riggi.