TWO inmates carried out an unprovoked attack in a bid to be transferred to another wing within a young offenders’ institution (YOI).

Jordan Ransom and David Spence struck as the targeted inmate was making his way from a food servery back to his cell at Deerbolt YOI, near Barnard Castle, County Durham, on October 20.

Durham Crown Court heard that Ransom and Spence pounced from different angles, both striking the victim once to the face, causing him to fall heavily on a stairway.

The badly injured inmate was taken to hospital for x-rays and it emerged he suffered fractures to a cheek bone and orbital socket, plus a laceration to the nose, as well as blackened and swollen eye, which he was unable to open for three days.

Ransom and Spence, both 20 at the time, were immediately segregated and, when interviewed, made no comment, but each admitted a charge of unlawful wounding at an earlier hearing.

Shaun Dryden, for Ransom, said he has, “a bad record” for someone of his age having had “difficulties” with drug misuse and gambling.

Mr Dryden said Ransom, who is from Stockton, on Teesside, is serving a five-year sentence for robbery, with an earliest release date in late October.

“This was a misguided attempt by them to move to a wing where another friend had been moved."

Paul Caulfield, for Spence, now 21, from Gateshead, said he has a personality disorder which will require medical assistance on his eventual release, as he has been told it could take up to five years to treat.

Imposing sentences of a further 16 months on both defendants, Judge Robert Adams told them: “For whatever reason this was a ‘group’ attack, by the two of you targeting an innocent man.”