Prison officer awarded £600k after being attacked by Carl Langdell
A prison officer who was brutally attacked by the Plenty of Fish killer has been awarded £600,000 in compensation.
The injured guard, who has not been named, was ‘very nearly killed’ during a four-minute onslaught from murderer Carl Langdell.
The 50-year-old officer was attacked so badly he was unable to carry on with his job, but said seeing Langdell get an ‘easy ride’ during his time behind bars added ‘insult to injury’, he told the Mirror.
Langdell was given a minimum sentence of 26 years after confessing to murdering young teacher Katie Locke and sexually assaulting her corpse.
He throttled Miss Locke in a hotel room, hours after a first date organised through the Plenty of Fish website.
Carl Langdell murdered teacher Katie Locke, 23, on their first Plenty of Fish date
Langdell sexually assaulted and killed Ms Locke in December 2015 after meeting her on a dating website
Recalling the attack he suffered from Langdell, the injured guard said: ‘He charged me. He smacked me in the face, smashing my eye socket, and threw me against a wall. He started strangling me and nearly broke my neck.’
The officer, who now works as a postman, had to wait eight years for his settlement before it was finally awarded at Luton County Court.
He added: ‘One thing that really got my goat was that the day after I was attacked, two PE instructors carried a rowing machine across the prison… allowing him to continue his exercise routine.
‘It added insult to injury. The reason I am talking about this is I became determined this sort of bad treatment should not happen to anyone else. I was treated very badly and the award I have been given reflects the psychological trauma I went through as well as the physical injuries.’
Langdell, who lied to Miss Locke about being a lawyer, wrapped his victim’s body in a duvet before dumping her near a skip in the grounds of the four-star hotel.
Langdell died on February 11, 2021, aged 31 after he seriously injured himself in his cell at Wakefield
Months before the murder, he avoided going to prison after making threats to kill a community nurse.
Instead he got a suspended sentence, having threatened the woman in what he claimed was an attempt to shock mental health officials to get their attention.
After the murder, Langdell told his mother he was a ‘monster’ and claimed he had killed Miss Locke in a sex game gone wrong.
He had told a mental health worker that he had fantasies of cutting a girl’s throat, seeing her naked and having sex with her dead body, just nine months before the murder.
In 2021, Langdell died in prison after his ‘throat was slashed’. He was found in his cell with serious injuries to his neck by guards at Wakefield prison in West Yorkshire.
Prison guards were alerted to the incident after hearing noises coming from the mentally ill murderer’s single-person cell, according to The Sun.
A source told the newspaper: ‘He was found in his cell with a slashed throat.’
MailOnline has contacted the Ministry of Justice.
