A CONVICTED killer stabbed to death a fellow inmate at Dartmoor jail using a ten-inch bladed kitchen knife used to chop vegetables, a court has heard.

William Tolcher, 51, suddenly stabbed Alexander Cusworth in the abdomen with the red handled knife one day last November ‘to settle a score over his disrespectful behaviour’.

Mr Cusworth, aged 37, of Barn Park Terrace, Teignmouth, originally came from Baswich, Staffordshire and was the adopted son of local councillor Ann Edgeller and her late husband Howard Cusworth.

Prosecutor Simon Laws QC told a jury at Plymouth Crown Court: ’On November 26 last year this defendant William Tolcher was working in the kitchen at Dartmoor prison.

’He was an inmate there. He had been issued with a knife. The knife was to be used in the preparation of vegetables.

’It is also obvious that it is capable of being a formidable weapon.

’Suddenly and without warning he used it on another inmate. He stabbed him in the abdomen, and the other man died as a result.

’What he did was without any possible justification or excuse at all. He was not defending himself. It was not an accident.

’He was seen to do it. He admitted what he had done to a fellow inmate in the immediate aftermath of the stabbing.

’Faced with that evidence after he had been arrested he would say nothing to the police.’

The court was told Dartmoor jail encourages inmates to have jobs.

He said: ’Feeding the prison population requires preparation of food on an industrial scale.

’There are 650 people who are fed by the kitchen at Dartmoor three times a day.

’The prisoners work alongside members of staff in the kitchen. The kitchen is a large and extremely busy place.’

The jury was told Liverpudlian Tolcher was convicted of murdering a woman in Newquay, Cornwall, in 1996 and was serving a life sentence for killing Catherine Sharples.

The court was told Tolcher also admitted causing actual bodily harm in an attack on a prisoner in 2003.

Mr Laws said the prison staff were having a meeting in a small office in the 30m x 17m kitchen situated in the middle of the granite jail on the afternoon of the killing.

He said on the day there were a large number of inmates working with a small number of staff in the kitchen and Tolcher was given knife number 23 and ‘he had that knife that day’.

At 3pm, the staff were in the meeting and Tolcher was working with some other prisoners including Gareth Clements, Eddie Hogarth and Alex Cusworth.

Clements knew ‘Scouse Billy’ and the jury heard the tall, slim defendant came towards the working station and ‘got within a foot of Alex and stabbed him with knife 23’.

’It was a single blow struck with some force to his left flank. Clements saw the knife as it came out of Alex’s body with blood on it. That knife was being held by Tolcher. Alex had no chance. He could do nothing to defend himself from an attack of that kind.

’He collapsed on the floor saying he had been stabbed and calling for help.’

Clements then heard Tolcher say ‘you wont f***ing talk to me like that’.

The jury was told there had been no conversation between Tolcher and Cusworth before the attack so it was supposed the victim had said something earlier which Tolcher had taken offence to.

Mr Laws said Tolcher then calmly walked off adding: ’Those are the words of a man using violence to settle a score, dealing with disrespectful behaviour from him.’

As the alarm was raised there was a commotion but Tolcher returned the knife to the vegetable preparation area before he then went to another part of the kitchen where he told another inmate Luke Atherton: ’I have just f***ed up, I have f***ed up big. I have stuck a ten-inch blade into Alex.’

Mr Laws said: ’It was a very accurate description of what he had just done. They were the last words he was to say on the topic to any prisoner or anyone else at the prison that day.’

The knife had cut through a rib and passed through the bottom of his kidney and a large vein and he died in hospital from blood loss and heart failure.

Tolcher was later arrested at the jail but in three police interviews he made no comment.

Mr Laws said some fellow inmates will give evidence for the prosecution even though they could be labelled as grasses and risk bullying or worse but he said they were going to bravely speak out.

And he said they were not gaining anything from giving evidence for the Crown – no reduced sentences for doing so.

He said: ’The prosecution say they are giving evidence for the right reasons. The defendant did something unforgiveable, he killed a man in a brutal and cowardly manner and they have decided to stand up and be counted.’

And Mr Laws ended his opening remarks by telling the court that Tolcher killed a woman in 1996 and he ‘did so in anger’, and in 2003 while serving that life sentence he attacked another prisoner and pleaded guilty to causing actual bodily harm.

Tolcher denies murder and his trial continues.