A depraved killer who murdered a pregnant mum and three children at a sleepover has allegedly attacked a fellow inmate with a claw hammer.
Damien Bendall was sent to prison for life for killing his 35-year-old girlfriend Terri Harris, her 11-year-old daughter Lacey Bennett, her son John Paul Bennett, 13, and Lacey's friend Connie Gent, also 11, at a home in Derbyshire.
He also pleaded guilty to raping Lacey in the "brutal, vicious and cruel attacks", in which he smashed in the victims' skulls using a claw hammer. Now the sleepover killer is said to have left a prisoner fighting for his life after battering him with a claw hammer in a workshop in Frankland Prison, County Durham. The Sun quoted a source who claimed the victim was bludgeoned three or four times and may not survive.
They said: “This is a shocking and horrendous attack even by the standards of Frankland, which is a grim and violent place. The prison officers and medics who attended were traumatised. Police will investigate it as either attempted murder or murder, depending on whether the victim survives. Bendall has been put into a segregation unit.”
A spokesperson for the Ministry of Justice did not refute the claims and said: "We cannot comment on a live police investigation but prisoners who are violent face tough punishments.” The horrific nature of Bendall's crimes made his case in 2022 a high profile one, with the judge handing down a whole life order to the murderer. High Court judge Mr Justice Sweeney spoke of the "utter devastation" that he had caused.
In a particularly tragic twist the court heard that Lacey's pal Connie had only been due to stay over for one night, but successfully got permission from her mother, fatefully extending her stay by another night - coinciding with Bendall's attacks, the court heard. It also emerged that having brutally killed Ms Harris and the children, Bendall "took John's Xbox (games console), ordered a taxi, went to Sheffield", where he then exchanged the console "for drugs", Mr Malby said.
Bendall would later tell police he had consumed "three to four bags of cocaine and then blacked out". Ms Harris and the children were found dead at her home in Chandos Crescent, Killamarsh, in north-east Derbyshire, near Sheffield, on September 19 last year.
It later emerged he had convictions for violent offences. An ex-partner had also made allegations of domestic abuse. Nearly all the victims had defensive injuries, indicating they had tried to fight off Bendall after he launched his attack some time after 9.42pm on September 18.
During the sentencing prosecutor Louis Mably KC said: "The circumstances of these offences are truly hideous and dreadful. These were brutal, vicious and cruel attacks on a defenceless woman and three young children. The defendant attacked them using a claw hammer which he used to hit them over the head and on the upper body. It was perfectly clear none of the victims stood a chance."
Mr Mably, recounting Bendall's likely movements through the family home, said: "It does appear each (victim) was attacked in a different room, (and) appears he went around the house looking for them, attacking them each in turn, in order to kill them.
"One of the dreadful facts about this case is that during the attacks, the defendant raped 11-year-old Lacey, and this included raping her as she lay dying from the head wounds he had inflicted with the hammer."