Convict ‘does not deserve’ £5.5m he is getting for jail stabbing says ex

A convicted burglar awarded £5.5million after being stabbed 16 times in a prison kitchen ‘doesn’t deserve’ the huge payout, insists his former girlfriend.

Career-criminal Steven Wilson sued the Ministry of Justice because he has a phobia of kitchens after he was struck with a nine-inch knife by a fellow prisoner as he carried out kitchen duties inside HMP Chelmsford in Essex in July 2018.

As a result, Wilson suffered a torn liver, fractured spine and lacerated spinal cord and has been left suffering post-traumatic stress disorder and physical injuries.

But one woman who doesn’t believe he should have been awarded such a huge sum is Jade Lewis, who was in an abusive relationship with Wilson for five years.

She told friends she is stunned that taxpayers’ money has gone to the man she describes as having a ‘Jekyll and Hyde’ character prone to violent outbursts, who once left her with a fractured cheekbone and broken ribs.

Jade refused to comment – but, speaking exclusively to MailOnline, a friend said: ‘Jade is outraged that he’s got the money. 

‘It’s not like he was stabbed in the street while he was out shopping. He was in prison for a reason.

‘He’s a violent, unpredictable career criminal. That amount of money will leave him set for life. He will never have to work again. 

‘Meanwhile Jade has to bring up their daughter without a penny from him – and has had to work hard for all she has. Where is the justice?’

Jade, a mother-of-one, from Tilbury, in Essex, was raising their young daughter when Wilson was in prison serving a six-and-a-half year stretch for aggravated burglary.

Her ex was jailed as part of a group of thugs who were imprisoned for assaulting a man who a woman had falsely claimed had sexually assaulted her.

It was the latest in a number of jail terms Wilson has served from a number of offences.

Things had looked much more promising for Wilson in his younger years before Jade met him and he was accepted to join 1st Battalion The Royal Anglian Regiment – aka The Vikings.

But he was forced to delay his enrolment by a year when he broke his ankle playing football.

And during his recovery he narrowly avoided jail after he assaulted two police officers, urinated in a police car and verbally abused nurses while high on cocaine.

Jade told the friend she doesn’t look back fondly on her time with Wilson who was also jailed for domestic violence after attacking her.

‘Steven was four years older than Jade and was very jealous and controlling,’ said the friend.

‘He hated anyone else looking at her. If she so much as looked towards another man, he’d go berserk and start having a go at her in public.

‘Steven became more and more paranoid after the birth of their daughter. He’d always smoked weed, but he’d upped his intake after the baby was born.

‘I don’t know why, maybe it was the pressure of being a dad.

‘Although they had a child together, they lived apart. Jade lived with her parents in Tilbury and Steven lived in a house-share nearby.

‘She’d been to see him for a few days with their daughter and was due to go home back to her mum and dad.

‘They were arguing about her going back as Steven accused her of wanting to go out and see other men. 

‘She was actually holding their baby daughter in her arms when he punched her in the face.

‘The force of the punch fractured her right eye socket and she had to go to the hospital, where she was given an eye-patch to wear. 

‘She wore it around Tilbury for weeks.’

The friend said that Wilson was jailed for that assault. but when he came out of prison he managed to persuade Ms Lewis that he was sorry and had changed.

But the source continued: ‘Jade had got herself a flat while he was in jail. but when he came out he convinced her that he’d changed and that he loved her so much. 

‘She fell for it and they got back together.

‘It wasn’t long before the violence started up again. One Christmas they were both sitting watching television when they began arguing over something trivial.

‘Steven punched her and ended up breaking three of her ribs. Jade left the flat and moved back in with her parents.

‘Steven has been in and out of prison, he’s a career criminal who hasn’t had much of a role in his daughter’s life.

‘Apparently, he’s been saying that he wants to set up a trust fund for her and one day buy her a house, but to the best of my knowledge he hasn’t actually seen her for about two years.

‘All that moment won’t do him any good. He’ll waste it on whatever.’

Ms Lewis declined to comment when approached by MailOnline saying: ‘I haven’t been with Steven for more than ten years, but he’s still the father of my daughter so for that reason I don’t want to say anything.’

In a ruling on Friday Judge Melissa Clarke awarded Mr Wilson £5,404,559.05 in damages.

The MoJ was also ordered to pay his £546,000 lawyers’ bill.

Wilson accused the MoJ of failing to adequately assess whether Patrick Chandler, a violent prisoner serving a life sentence for murder, was safe for kitchen work.

A risk assessment said it was ‘unknown’ if Chandler could be left unsupervised – but he was still deployed to work in the kitchen with access to knives.

The MoJ admitted liability over the incident, but challenged the level of Mr Wilson’s claim for damages.

They argued that, because Wilson had a 20-year criminal record with ‘next to no history’ of having earned an honest penny, he should not get the £5million-plus damages he was claiming.

Wilson told the court he 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 and was left wheelchair bound.

Chandler later admitted attempting to murder Wilson and received an additional life sentence and ten-year minimum term in November 2018.

Chandler’s overall risk rating had been assessed by the MoJ as ‘medium’, court documents disclosed, despite two weeks before the attack having allegedly told his supervisor that ‘he had fantasized about violence and what he was going to do to people and about making weapons’.

Wilson’s barrister, Giles Mooney KC, told the judge that, once off the operating table, he was treated in hospital for over two months and had to use a wheelchair.

He now needs a stick to get around, is plagued by chronic pain and cannot work due to the legacy of his 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.’

His ordeal also triggered flashbacks, PTSD and nightmares, he said, telling the court: ‘When I came out I kept seeing this man.

‘I knew that he was behind bars, but I kept seeing him, I had dreams that he was chasing me and I’d wake up in a pool of sweat.’

During the trial of the case, 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,’ adding that Wilson had a lengthy criminal record, including offences involving criminal damage, theft, driving, breach of community orders and violence.

But handing down the judgment, Judge Clarke said that some of the experts put forward by the Government Legal Department had during the trial ‘departed from an initial fair and independent approach to Mr Wilson’s case’.