Goth killer sentence extended over attack

Sophie Lancaster, 20, was killed in 2007 by Brendan Harris and Ryan Herbert, with repeated stamps and kicks to her head just because of the way she looked.

The latest assault took place at a psychiatric hospital where Harris, now 21, was transferred to last year after he was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia.

He broke the nose of a male nurse with a single “substantial” blow as staff at Guild Lodge, near Preston, tried to restrain him.

Harris had claimed he acted in self-defence but a jury at Preston Crown Court rejected his account earlier this month and convicted him of committing grievous bodily harm in January.

Miss Lancaster was “volleyed” in the face, as if kicking a football, by Herbert and kicked in the head by Harris as she cradled her boyfriend, Robert Maltby, from Todmorden, in a park in Bacup after he had been attacked.

The pair, along with three other teenagers, had moments earlier stamped and kicked art student Mr Maltby into unconsciousness.

The savagery of the assault was such that paramedics could not tell which sex the victims were.

Gap-year student Miss Lancaster died in hospital 13 days later.

Yesterday Judge Christopher Cornwall told Harris – who appeared in court via video link – that the background to him being in Guild Lodge was that he had been convicted of the “appalling” murder of Miss Lancaster and inflicting GBH on Mr Maltby.

His barrister argued it would be wrong to impose a consecutive sentence but Judge Cornwall said the court had a duty to send a message to other long-serving prisoners “who may think they have very little to lose if they behave badly”.

The judge said Harris’s mental health condition made the culpability lower as he sentenced him to a further four months of detention. That term will be added to the minimum 18 years he must serve, imposed in 2008, before he can be considered for parole.