The prisoner originally from Islington, North London was serving a life term for murder
A prisoner bludgeoned a fellow inmate to death with a piece of gym equipment within a maximum security jail then continued to work out on a running machine for around half an hour, a court heard.
Nathaniel Reece, 45, originally from Islington, North London, who was serving a life term for murder, used “ferocious force” when he brought a metal bar down on the back of 63-year-old John Mansfield’s head as he did push-ups, prosecutor Marti Blair said.
She told Huntingdon Crown Court that Reece killed Mansfield “by bludgeoning him to death with a piece of gym equipment” at HMP Whitemoor in Cambridgeshire on April 13 last year.
Ms Blair said Reece spent around 30 minutes on a running machine afterwards, as Mansfield lay in a pool of blood, and she said Reece spent a “good period” of that time “looking at himself in the mirror”.
Ms Blair said that the day before, on April 12, Reece was “heard to loudly shout Allahu Akbar after hearing about an incident at HMP Frankland” in Durham, in which hot cooking oil was thrown on a prison officer.
“He was also heard to talk about how the perpetrator had ‘f***ed them up’,” she said.
Ms Blair told jurors: “You may have heard about this incident at Frankland prison. This also took place in a high-security unit.”
She said that “one of the officers had hot cooking oil thrown at him” at HMP Frankland.
Ms Blair said the incident at HMP Frankland led to kitchens at close supervision centres (CSCs) being closed at prisons nationally and the “unit at Whitemoor was no exception”. She made reference to Reece’s “beloved cooking”.
Ms Blair said Reece was unlocked at around 3.30pm on April 13 after “they had been in their cells all morning, received the information they weren’t allowed to use the kitchens any more”.
The barrister said Mansfield, who was also a convicted murderer, and Reece were alone together in the gym of the CSC at HMP Whitemoor when Reece struck him eight times.
Ms Blair said that the CSC is “a unit for prisoners who are not safe for being held among the general prison population”.
She said that “only a week before they (Reece and Mansfield) had been placed with each other alongside another prisoner in a smaller association within the CSC”.
She continued: “They had been placed in this association group as they appeared to get on well and they often worked out in the gym.”
Ms Blair said that on the day of the incident both men had been “unlocked” by officers and went to the “small CSC gym for a workout”.
Items including a silver bar were removed from a gym cupboard, the men went to work out and “officers left them to their own devices”, Ms Blair said.
She said: “As a result there were no witnesses to what happened next, although CCTV in the room captured the incident.”
Ms Blair said Reece “pushed a door to and turned up the radio”, then “got down onto an exercise mat and did 20 push-ups in quick succession”.
When Mansfield later started a round of push-ups, Reece “tucked his hand behind his back and took hold of that metal bar”.
“When Mr Mansfield was still face down and vulnerable the defendant took the metal bar, stood up and … brought the silver bar down onto the back of Mr Mansfield’s head,” she said.
Ms Blair said Reece used “ferocious force” and Mansfield “didn’t respond or react to the violence”.
“The defendant inflicted a total of eight blows to the back of his head,” she said.
She said the bar was around a foot long and described it as an “unprovoked, deliberate and calculated attack of Mr Mansfield when he was vulnerable on the ground”.
She said Reece had placed the bar on a workout bench and “when Mr Mansfield went to do his push-ups for the second time he sat on the metal bar to conceal it” before he used it.
Bald-headed Reece, formerly from Islington, north London, listened to proceedings by video-link from HMP Woodhill in Milton Keynes.
Ms Blair said that after the attack, Reece “walked away from Mr Mansfield’s lifeless body and the pool of blood”, and started working out on a running machine. She said he later walked out of the gym and officers discovered Mansfield’s body.
She said the third prisoner in their association group had been elsewhere, in a recreation room playing pool with a prison officer at the time.
Ms Blair said that in a prepared statement, Reece said his “actions were self-defence”.
“Threats were made that John Mansfield would stab me,” according to the statement read by Ms Blair.
The prosecutor said Reece answered no comment to further questions.
Ms Blair said CCTV footage from the gym “doesn’t in any way show that the defendant was facing any sort of immediate threat … from Mr Mansfield”.
Reece denies the murder of Mansfield.
The trial, estimated to last around three weeks, continues.
