Convicted murderers Richard Prendergast and Kevin Hyden used makeshift blades to repeatedly stab the child killer whose life was later saved at HMP Wakefield by a prison nurse

Two fellow murderers who repeatedly stabbed Sarah Payne’s killer Roy Whiting in prison while screaming “you f**king nonce” have been sentenced to a total of 15 years in prison.

Whiting has described how Richard Prendergast and Kevin Hyden suddenly rushed into his cell and started to ‘stab and punch me to my head and body’.

Prendergast and Hyden were today jailed for seven-and-a-half years each, which has been added to their current life sentences.

They attacked him with screws, one of which was attached to two pieces of wood, and battered him with blows, leaving him lying in a pool of his own blood.

Sentencing the pair today, Judge Tom Bayliss QC said Whiting’s notoriety appears to have ‘served as motivation’ for the attack.

The men, both 40, did not stop stabbing 61-year-old Whiting until baton-wielding prison officers forced the cell door open, a court heard.