For those banged up in Britain’s high-security prisons, the reminders that life hangs by the thinnest of threads keep coming.

Earlier this week, a court heard how murderer Donald Gaote-Oueyeya stabbed the neck of a fellow prisoner in HMP Frankland.

Fearing that his victim, an alleged gangland boss, had ‘put a price on his head’, the 26-year-old fashioned a blade from a piece of cutlery and launched an attack ‘without warning’.

It was only by chance that the inmate was not more seriously hurt. Gaote-Oueyeya, serving life for killing a teenage boy, was given a further four years in prison for the assault.

Among the 800 inmates at the Category A prison, the callousness of the attack will not have gone unnoticed. In March, Soham murderer Ian Huntley died after being violently attacked in the workshops of the same jail. The previous year Lostprophets singer Ian Watkins, a convicted paedophile, died after his throat was slit at HMP Wakefield, another high-security prison.

While criminal proceedings against Huntley’s killer are yet to reach a conclusion, the trial of the two prisoners accused of killing Watkins collapsed on Friday.

The deaths of Huntley and Watkins have sent shockwaves through the prison community. If two of the most high-profile, best-protected inmates in the British prison estate could be attacked, was anyone else safe?

At Frankland, the elimination of Huntley has left others on its roll call of murderers, rapists and degenerates cowering in their cells out of fear they could be next.

Among them is policeman Wayne Couzens, who abducted, raped and murdered Sarah Everard; and Levi Bellfield, who raped and murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler.

But according to well-placed sources, also feeling the heat is Urfan Sharif, held in the County Durham jail for torturing and murdering his ten-year-old daughter Sara.

Sharif has the added misfortune of knowing what it’s like to be on the receiving end of a prison attack. In January 2025, shortly after he was handed a 40-year minimum sentence for killing Sara, his neck and face were slashed by an inmate at Belmarsh. The weapon was fashioned from the lid of a tuna tin.

After receiving treatment, the 44-year-old was transferred from the jail in south-east London to Frankland. ‘When Sharif arrived in Frankland he was like a scared kitten – really terrified,’ a source at the prison told the Daily Mail.

‘This is someone who thought he was going to be murdered very quickly after what happened to him at Belmarsh.

‘Belmarsh is a pretty tough prison but Frankland has a real reputation – and not in a good way.

‘So Sharif comes in, tears in his eyes, shaking, asking staff how is he going to be protected, saying the death of his daughter was a “mistake”, all that sort of stuff – we hear it all the time. It was all very pathetic and not the sort of image you want to give off when you come into a place like Frankland. Because after Huntley was killed, every single child killer and rapist in Frankland thought they were going to be next.’

The source added: ‘Sharif is not a very nice person – very manipulative. You meet some lifers and you can see some good in them, but I think Sharif has always been bad. Everyone in Frankland knows what Sharif did to his daughter... he won’t be forgiven.’ During a two-year campaign of abuse, Sharif throttled Sara and hit her with a cricket bat and metal pole – sometimes tying her hands and legs together with parcel tape. She was also bitten and burned with an iron.

Initially housed on a wing for VPs (vulnerable prisoners), Sharif has since been moved to a general wing. He is said to have grown his hair and lost a lot of weight, and is now ‘very thin’.

‘Since being on that wing he has very much associated himself with the Muslim gangs in the prison,’ the source said, adding that he hoped to gain their protection.

He said: ‘It doesn’t matter what you are convicted of, if you are a Muslim and you go to prayers and claim that you are devout you will be looked after. Very few people inside Frankland are going to try and take on someone protected by the Muslim gangs. I don’t know if he was devout before he came to Frankland, but he is now.’

Another source added: ‘Sharif is a coward. Most of the time he’s too scared to leave his cell.

‘He’s convinced that he is going to be attacked and killed just like Huntley. He looks like a haunted man, knowing what’s coming to him.’ In seeking such protection, Sharif follows a well-travelled route. Bellfield converted to Islam not long after being sentenced to life for murder – and is now known by the name Yusuf Rahim.

‘He found out a paedophile had been slashed in Wakefield and thought he would be next: he was a marked man after he was convicted,’ his sister Ann-Marie Bellfield once revealed.

‘He said they were good boys and would look after him... he got friendly with Islamic guys and didn’t have a problem.’

At Frankland, a third of its 800 inmates are classed as Category A – the most dangerous – prisoners, meaning the risk of violence is ever present. A parliamentary report in 2023 revealed that some prisoners at the jail had been offered bounties of up to £10,000 to carry out attacks on other inmates. One prisoner took on such a ‘contract’ simply to fund his addiction to vapes.

In 2024, an unannounced inspection found that while the establishment was rated as safer than other jails holding similar prisoners, there had been 147 assaults in the previous six months, a third more than in the same period before the previous inspection.

All of which means Sharif will forever have to be on his guard.

However, the situation facing his wife – Sara’s stepmother – is somewhat different.

Beinash Batool, 31, has been held at HMP Bronzefield, the largest women’s prison in Europe, since she was on remand, remaining there after being handed a 33-year jail sentence for her role in Sara’s death.

Batool went along with her husband’s abuse of the girl, treating her as a ‘worthless skivvy’ and claiming that the child had a ‘demon’ within her, the court heard.

While attacks on women in the jail in Ashford, Surrey, are not unheard of, a recent inspection found levels of violence remain low compared with other prisons.

It concluded that a small number of women were responsible for a significant proportion of the incidents and most were not classified as ‘serious’.

But a former inmate told the Daily Mail that in her early days at Bronzefield, Batool was concerned she would be a target.

‘She didn’t want to leave her cell,’ she said. ‘But that immediately makes you look vulnerable. So she was encouraged to come out and mingle with other prisoners.’

Batool is held on House Block Four, where each cell has its own ensuite shower. Inmates on the block mainly consist of women serving life sentences as well as VPs, such as paedophiles and child killers.

Prisoners who behave well, such as Batool, are known as enhanced prisoners and have TVs with Freeview and a DVD player, plus books and films and access to gym and workshops.

Further good behaviour is rewarded with time in the beauty salon and access to the staff cafe, Vita Nova.

Also held on block four are Constance Marten, the 39-year-old aristocrat convicted of killing her baby while on the run from the authorities, and Lucy Letby, 36, who is serving 15 life sentences for murdering seven babies and trying to murder another seven at the Countess of Chester Hospital.

Batool and Letby are said to have formed an unlikely friendship after Batool sought help with an ultimately unsuccessful appeal against her sentence. ‘Letby gets on with pretty much everyone and is the person people go to for legal advice – she’s like the unofficial prison lawyer,’ said the source.

‘We have actually had people with law degrees in Bronzefield and they have been impressed with Letby’s knowledge.

‘There was a point when she was advising Batool about what she needed to do if she was going to appeal her sentence – but that was quite a while ago.’

Like many lifers, Batool looked for ways to pass the time, initially completing puzzle books on her own. But she and Letby have bonded over their shared love of games – first the card game Uno, and more recently chess.

A charity called Chess in Schools and Communities holds a weekly club at Bronzefield, with inmates even taking part in the world prison online championships. In recent years teams from the prison have picked up silver and bronze medals.

‘The game has been promoted for years in Bronzefield now and there is a very competitive chess club,’ a source said. ‘Letby and Batool have even started teaching the game to other cons in there.

‘It has been seen over the years that chess helps with anger management and also obviously helps to keep them occupied.

‘Letby and Batool are two of the more intelligent team-mates as well so are flourishing.

‘But victims’ families might not like the idea of them playing so much... however staff have to do what they can to keep them occupied and keep the peace.

‘They still play Uno together as well and are really good friends, but have switched to playing more chess now.’

The pair are said to pay monthly visits to the hair and beauty salon, with other prisoners cleared from the room to prevent attacks.

Chess aside, Batool previously worked in the prison library. More recently she is said to have moved to a role in the chapel of HMP Bronzefield, where she is in charge of photocopying leaflets and other materials for Muslim and Christian prisoners.

While seen as a ‘cushy’ job, reports suggests that Batool has not embraced the role.

‘She’s doing f****** photocopies, she collates papers for the Muslim prisoners and the Christian prisoners, and puts them in envelopes, that’s all she does,’ a source said. ‘And now she’s whinging because “Oh, I’ve never worked in my life, I’ve always had a man support me” and “I just hate this job”.’

An attitude unlikely to win over any friends – in a place where, as history has repeatedly shown, making enemies is a very dangerous game.

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