Burglar wins £5.5m payout over prison stabbing that left him with fear of kitchens
A convicted burglar has won a £5.5 million payout after he was left with life-changing injuries and a phobia of kitchens following a stabbing in a prison canteen.
Steven Wilson, 36, suffered a torn liver, fractured spine and lacerated spinal cord when Patrick Chandler, a convicted murderer, stabbed him 16 times with a nine-inch knife at HMP Chelmsford in July 2018.
Mr Wilson later sued the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) claiming it had failed to adequately assess whether Chandler was safe for kitchen work as it gave him the opportunity to access knives and other sharp items.
The MoJ admitted liability for the attack and agreed Wilson was entitled to compensation.
However, lawyers argued that because he had a 20-year criminal record, with "next to no history" of having earned an honest penny, he should not get the £5 million-plus damages he was claiming.
But at the High Court on Friday, Judge Melissa Clarke awarded Wilson a compensation payout of just under £5.5 million, while also ordering the Government to pay his £546,000 lawyers' bill on top.
The compensation was awarded after Wilson said he was left suffering from chronic pain as a result of the attack, as well as flashbacks, post-traumatic stress disorder and nightmares.
Wilson, of Clacton-on-Sea, Essex , was on remand for an aggravated burglary when he was attacked "out of the blue" by Chandler.
At the time, his attacker was only 24 days into a life sentence for the murder of John Comer, 45, in Lawford, Essex, in December 2017.
The formerly "fit and fearless" Wilson recalled Chandler "looking at him strangely" before he lashed out, as if he was "looking straight through him".
He was stabbed in the stomach with such force that it lifted him off the ground, but survived with a range of severe injuries.
Chandler later admitted attempting to murder Wilson and received an additional life sentence and 10-year minimum term in November 2018.
Chandler's overall risk rating had been assessed by the MoJ as "medium", court documents disclosed, despite having allegedly told his supervisor two weeks before the attack that "he had fantasised about violence and what he was going to do to people and about making weapons".
Giles Mooney KC, Wilson's barrister, told the judge that once off the operating table he was treated in hospital for more than two months and had to use a wheelchair.
He now needs a stick to get around and cannot work as a result of the attack.
Giving evidence, Wilson told the judge: "I went in there a perfectly fit young man and came out in a wheelchair."
He said he is still haunted by the attack, has a deep horror of knives and now tries to avoid going into the kitchen at all times.
"When I see knives I feel cold," he said from the witness box. "You don't understand the chill I get when I see a knife.
"I can't be in a kitchen or around knives because it reminds me of the attack."
MoJ barrister Richard Wheeler KC told the judge: "While the defendant accepts the claimant must be compensated for his injuries, that compensation must be fair, reasonable and just."
He said that Wilson had a lengthy criminal record , including offences involving criminal damage, theft, driving, breach of community orders and violence.
Although he had at one point claimed to have earned £800 per week before going to jail, he had put forward "no evidence" of this, said the barrister.
At the time of the attack, Wilson was on remand for an aggravated burglary, for which he was later sentenced to six-and-a-half years in prison.
The MoJ argued that Wilson had made improvements in his condition since the attack and so did not need the level of care going forward that he claimed.
However, Mr Mooney insisted that the MoJ had "seriously undervalued" the claim and that he deserved the full payout.
