Donald Gaote-Oueyeya has been jailed for a further four years after slashing John Henry Sayers at HMP Frankland in April last year – he carried out his assault after learning that Sayers had ‘put a contract out’ on him
A killer will spend an additional four years locked up after slashing the throat of a man known as the “Godfather of Newcastle”. John Henry Sayers needed hospital care following an assault by Donald Gaote-Oueyeya at HMP Frankland in April last year.
Gaote-Oueyeya, 26, carried out his assault after learning that Sayers had “put a contract out” on him, the court heard. Gaote-Oueyeya was serving a life term for murdering a 17-year-old lad during a gang assault in Wandsworth, London, when he was also 17.
Teesside Crown Court was told that shortly after 6pm on April 30, 2025, inmates at HMP Frankland were out of their cells and taking part in “association time” when Gaote-Oueyeya charged at Sayers on the prison landing and struck him “without warning”.
Gaote-Oueyeya repeatedly sliced at Sayers with a makeshift blade, thought to have been crafted from a piece of prison cutlery. Sayers suffered a “fairly deep” 7cm gash to his neck, a 5cm wound to the right side of his forehead and a 2cm cut to his right ring finger, the court heard.
He was rushed to hospital for further treatment. The court heard that the weapon was never recovered, reports Chronicle Live.
A prison officer also sustained several cuts to his right arm and a cut on his eye while attempting to intervene. The court heard that his injuries were not caused deliberately and Gaote-Oueyeya was sorry that the officer had been caught up in the incident.
In a victim personal statement penned in May last year, the officer told the court: “I still think about the incident itself. Although I haven’t really been back to work properly since, I can’t really put it into context the true impact of it yet but it does make me think more about the job.
“I wasn’t expecting myself to pick up injuries from a weapon, even though I know it’s prison. It does make me realise that we are not fully safe in the jail.”
In mitigation, Christopher Dunn stated there was no justification for Gaote-Oueyeya’s actions but there was a “price on his head for reasons he did not understand”. He said he was unable to approach the authorities due to fear of being labelled a “grass” and he was “frightened” by “a credible and real threat from someone he described as the Godfather of Newcastle”.
Judge Francis Laird noted that Gaote-Oueyeya had been a “model prisoner” until the incident and accepted that it was likely his good behaviour would resume after being transferred to a different prison.
Appearing via video link from HMP Long Lartin, Gaote-Oueyeya received a sentence of four years for wounding with intent and nine months for assault occasioning actual bodily harm, to be served concurrently to each other after his current sentence.