A PRISONER who killed "Britain's worst paedophile" after stabbing him in the brain with a pen has been convicted of murder.
Paul Fitzgerald, 30, said he wanted Richard Huckle, 33, to feel what his 200 victims had felt after strangling him with an electrical cable sheath and inserting a pen into his brain.
Jurors at Hull Crown Court took around an hour to convict Fitzgerald of murder after a four-day trial.
Alistair MacDonald QC, prosecuting, said the attack in October 2019 was designed to "humiliate and degrade" Huckle, who Fitzgerald described as "Britain's worst paedophile".
He added that Fitzgerald felt it was "poetic justice" as he wanted Huckle to feel what his victims had felt.
'POETIC JUSTICE'
Mr MacDonald said Huckle was a "predatory paedophile" who was "notorious in the press" and had been extradited and tried in the UK for a large number of child sexual assaults.
He said Fitzgerald told doctors he had sexually assaulted Huckle, even though he did not find him sexually attractive.
The barrister said: "He felt that it was poetic justice and he wanted Richard Huckle to feel what all those children had felt.
"He said that Richard Huckle was a man who raped and abused children for fun and that he suspected that Richard Huckle had done more than merely rape his victims.”
The court heard that Fitzgerald took a number of objects to Huckle's cell at HMP Full Sutton.
This was a carefully planned and executed attack, in the course of which Mr Huckle had been subjected to a prolonged attack also designed to humiliate and degrade him."
These included weapons fashioned by the defendant, such as a melted toothbrush with a screw inserted, and items used as a ligature and bindings for the victim's hands and feet.
Mr MacDonald said: "This was a carefully planned and executed attack, in the course of which Mr Huckle had been subjected to a prolonged attack also designed to humiliate and degrade him."
He said Fitzgerald told staff after the attack at the East Yorkshire prison that he "enjoyed" it and would have gone on to kill other inmates but he was "having too much fun".
He also said he had "murdered Mr Huckle in cold blood" and would like to have cooked bits of his body.
Fitzgerald denied murder and said his medical conditions – including mixed personality disorder, psychopathy and gender identity disorder – had impaired his ability to exercise self-control.
'COLD BLOOD'
The court heard on Monday that the defendant said he had "constant ruminations" in his mind about torture, rape and murder, and said: "My problem is I just don't have the ability to control myself.
"I don't have the ability to look at people and see them as human beings. I don't value them, I don't care about them.
"I don't feel bad about hurting people, I don't have the capacity to feel remorse."
Huckle admitted 71 counts of sex abuse against up to 200 children across Malaysia over nine years, some as young as six months.
He was arrested when he was stopped at Gatwick Airport while en route to spend Christmas with his family in 2014.
Huckle was jailed in 2016 and sentenced to 22 life sentences.
Fitzgerald will be sentenced at Hull Crown Court later today.
Source: Read Full Article