Whiting is serving life for murdering Sarah Payne

THE pervert jailed for murdering little Sarah Payne has been scarred in a revenge attack. Roy Whiting — caged until his dying day for killing eight-year-old Sarah — was slashed down one side of his face by a fellow murderer.

Warders tried to stem the bleeding but the wounds were too deep. Whiting — branded “every parent’s nightmare come true” at his trial — was rushed to hospital under heavy guard. Doctors stitched his wounds before he was returned to his cell at top security Wakefield Prison, West Yorks.

It is unclear what caused the injury but lags have been known to use craft knives and broken jars as weapons. Mechanic Whiting, 42, claims his attacker was Rickie Tregaskis, jailed for life for kicking an invalid to death in 1997 because the man looked at him “the wrong way”.

Bodybuilder Tregaskis, 33, had been released from a six-year sentence for stabbing a nightclub doorman just five weeks before the murder. Whiting last night told cops he wants to press charges over Sunday’s jail attack.

Whiting snatched Sarah as she walked down a country lane after she had been playing with her two brothers and little sister near her grandparents’ home in Kingston Gorse, West Sussex, last July. Her body was found 16 days later in a shallow grave in a field.

Whiting was nailed by a strand of Sarah’s hair on his sweatshirt and 22 fibres in his van. A semen stain was found on the shirt he was thought to have been wearing on the day.

Passing sentence at Lewes Crown Court, Mr Justice Curtis said Whiting was “a menace to every little girl”.