A PRISONER is to stand trial later this month accused of carrying out a savage attack on another inmate in a jail’s shower block.

Fabio Serrano is alleged to have slashed the fellow inmate across the face with a makeshift bladed weapon during an association period at Durham Prison, on Tuesday July 31, last year.

The background is said to have been a previous confrontation two weeks before the incident between Serrano and the other inmate, who knew each other from their native Tyneside prior to them both receiving prison sentences.

But on the day in question the pair are said to have had a pre-arranged meeting during which the improvised weapon was produced and used, causing a deep cut to the complainant’s left cheek.

It required 21 external stitches and seven inside the victim’s cheek to help to treat the wound.

Serrano has since been transferred to HMP Aylesbury, a young offenders’ institution in Buckinghamshire, from where he has appeared via video link to Durham Crown Court during the criminal case procedure.

The 19-year-old defendant, of Ladykirk Road, Benwell, in Newcastle, previously denied charges of both wounding with intent and the alternative of unlawful wounding.

A trial of up to three days will now take place at the court, due to start on Monday August 19.