“Convicted Killer John Mansfield Dies in a Brutal Weight-Related Attack in High-Security Prison Gym”

A man who was convicted of murder died after being attacked in the gym of a high-security prison. Sources informed MailOnline about the incident where a weight was used to smash the man’s head.

John Mansfield, who was serving a life sentence since 2007 for killing his neighbor Ann Alfanso, 63, in a drug-related crime, was the victim of the brutal assault that occurred in HMP Whitemoor in Cambs.

This violent event unfolded on a Sunday, following another incident at HMP Frankland in Co Durham the day before when Hashem Abedi, the terrorist from the Manchester Arena attack, assaulted three prison officers in a separate unit.

Both incidents have sparked warnings from experts about a ‘collapse in security’ in the jails housing Britain’s most dangerous criminals. 

Police were called to Whitemoor at 4.10pm on Sunday following the discovery of Mansfield’s body and he was pronounced dead at 4.27pm. A 44-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of murder and remains in custody.

While police have published an initial post-mortem finding that Mansfield died from a head injury, no other details have been released officially about the circumstances of the attack. 

However, claims the 63-year-old was killed by being hit in the head by a weight inside a gym at Whitemoor have been circulating among the prison system for several days. 

And now, two women whose partners are currently inmates at Whitemoor have come forward to repeat this account and speak of their fears about the situation inside the 458-capacity jail, which is meant to be one of the most secure in the country. 

John Mansfield was jailed for life at Manchester Crown Court for the brutal murder of Ann Alfanso, 63, of Whalley Range

A gym at Whitemoor pictured in a inspection report, although there’s no suggestion the assault happened in this particular one 

The women, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told MailOnline that Mansfield was in a gym inside a ‘secure unit’ on the prison when he was killed. 

The first said she had been told that it took a while for prison officers to notice that someone had died.

‘I heard someone got plundered in the head with weight,’ she said.

‘It happened inside a secure unit. I got told about this late at night. I got a phone call to say that someone had been murdered in the prison.

‘I was worried because we did not get told who the victim was right away straight away. Things happen in that prison and nobody knows about it.’

The second woman said: ‘I heard it happened in the gym. The same thing, that someone got hit with weights and died.

‘To be fair, he deserved it. He killed some 80-year-old woman. People don’t like that.

‘One of the other visitors phoned it [the information] to me. I’m worried it could happen to my husband.’

Cambridgeshire Police and the Prison Service both declined to comment on the claims.  

Ann Alfanso was found dead in her home after Mansfield stabbed her almost 100 times

John Mansfield, who was jailed for life in 2007 for the drug-fuelled murder of his neighbour Ann Alfanso, 63, was attacked inside HMP Whitemoor (pictured)

Mansfield, originally from Manchester, had been told he was unlikely to ever be released from prison following his 2014 attack on John Orme, a convicted rapist held at HMP Full Sutton, near York. 

Then aged 52, Mansfield was said to have walked up to Orme in his cell and told him ‘I have a present for you’ before slashing him seven times with a broken plate in a row over a cooking pot.

The attack severed his victim’s artery leaving him requiring 22 stitches.

Mansfield received a second life sentence in 2014 for the attack. 

He had also been convicted over a separate incident in 2011 that saw him batter a man he hated with a chair leg inside Strangeways Prison in Manchester. 

Sentencing him to a second life term in 2014, Judge Jeremy Richardson QC, said: ‘This was a pre-planned and calculated attack on a fellow inmate. You would have carried on had you not been prevented.

‘I doubt very much it will ever be safe to release you. I have no doubt you are a very dangerous criminal who regards violence as the norm, who has no hesitation but to kill when necessary.

‘You killed an old lady. Now you have convictions for two violent offences in prison. I have every reason to believe it will never be safe to release you. You are a violent and very dangerous man who poses a considerable threat to the public.’

CCTV showing Hashem Abedi in Belmarsh prison prior to storming the office of its custody manager in 2022

Mansfield’s first victim, Ann Alfanso, was found dead in her home in May Road, Whalley Range, Manchester, in 2006. 

She had been stabbed about 20 times in the head and neck. 

A post-mortem examination found she had a total of 97 wounds, bruises and cuts on her body as a result of the attack. 

Mansfield admitted her murder which police believe he carried out for a ‘pocketful of change’. 

The new claims about Mansfield’s murder come as ministers face renewed pressure pressure to get a grip on security in Britain’s prisons after Saturday’s horrific attack on three prison officers at HMP Frankland 

Hashem Abedi  – who helped his brother, suicide bomber Salman Abedi, plan the Manchester atrocity – fashioned two 20cm blades from a baking tray.

He hurled hot oil on the three officers before attacking them with the blades.

Abedi was known to be one of the most dangerous inmates in the UK, with a history of attacking officers.

Manchester Arena bomb plotter Hashem Abedi (pictured)  had access to a ‘self-cook kitchen’, hot cooking oil and the materials for the makeshift weapons used in his attack

He was ordered to serve a record 55-year minimum term for helping his brother murder 22 people, many of them children, at the Manchester Arena in 2017.

Yet he was given privileges including being allowed to cook for himself in a prison kitchen where he managed to create the blades.

Abedi is said to have dashed out of the kitchen just before lunchtime on Saturday clutching the weapons and a pan of boiling oil which he flung at the nearest three prison officers he encountered on a landing.

One male officer was then stabbed in the neck, with the blade coming close to severing an artery, reportedly leaving the victim ‘just millimetres’ from death.

Another male officer was stabbed at least five times in the back, puncturing a lung.

One of their female colleagues was also injured. The boiling oil is said to have left victims with third-degree burns.

Mark Fairhurst, the national chairman of the Prison Officers Association, has been calling for officers to be issued with stab vests.

He said: ‘I do not know why we are so terrified of upsetting terrorist offenders. We are appeasing them instead of treating them as the threat that they represent.

The interior of a cell at HMP Whitemoor

‘We need to stop allowing terrorist offenders in separation centres the freedom and privilege to use self-cook facilities and we need to issue stab-proof vests and protective equipment to officers.

‘The use of Tasers may not have prevented this attack as those officers would not have had time to draw them, but their injuries would have been severely reduced if they had them.

‘Staff are now at risk from copycat attacks in other prisons. These are terrorists – how do we know this will not result in a call to arms?

‘Terrorist prisoners are intent on causing harm, and people in these separation centres want to destroy our way of life. Why are we appeasing people who want to kill us?’

After the attack, Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood promised: ‘I will be pushing for the strongest possible punishment.’

The use of kitchen facilities inside separation centres has currently been suspended, it emerged earlier this week.