Bidve killer holds prison vicar hostage after losing appeal

Kiaran 'Psycho' Stapleton, the man convicted of murdering Indian student Anuj Bidve took his prison chaplain hostage briefly, days after his appeal against a life sentence failed.

Stapleton, 21, was sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of 23-year-old Bidve in Salford on December 26 last year. He was ordered to serve a minimum of 30 years before he is even eligible for parole.

Last week Stapleton lured in the chaplain by saying he wanted to speak privately to come to terms with his appeal being thrown out.

But once they were alone he pulled a homemade weapon on the vicar, who managed to bring in help by pressing his panic button.

A  team of guards then wrestled Stapleton to the ground and disarmed him, while the chaplain escaped unharmed in an attack.

"On November 30, a Full Sutton prisoner attempted to assault a member of the chaplaincy during worship. The police have been notified," a Prison Service spokesperson was quoted by the Daily Mail as saying.

At one point during his trial, Stapleton boasted that he did not care if he was locked up for 65 years because he enjoyed watching soaps in prison.

In October Stapleton pleaded to have his jail term reduced, despite saying he whiles away his days in "the best cell on the wing" waiting for his favourite soaps to begin while stuffing himself with sweets.

Stapleton appealed against the length of his sentence, but judges at the Court of Appeal on November 21, 2012, dismissed his appeal and upheld the original sentence.

Stapleton was found guilty of murder in July for killing Bidve, in "a piece of cold-blooded controlled aggression" that shocked Britain.

Bidve had arrived in the UK to study micro-electronics at Lancaster University and was visiting Manchester with a group of friends last Christmas.

Stapleton told one psychologist in prison that he picked out his victim because "he had the biggest head", the jury heard.

Sentencing him in July, Justice King told Stapleton: "In my judgement, this was no impulsive act on your part. It was a piece of cold-blooded controlled aggression."