A PRISON officer stabbed by a convicted killer who was later cleared by a jury will call for a retrial when he visits Parliament today.

Craig Wylde suffered lifethreatening injuries after he and two fellow guards at Frankland Prison, near Durham City, were attacked by Kevan Thakrar with a broken sauce bottle.

Mr Wylde, 29, Claire Lewis and Neil Walker all suffered serious injuries and have all since left their jobs.

But Thakrar was controversially cleared of two counts of attempted murder and three counts of wounding with intent after a Newcastle Crown Court jury found he was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Mr Wylde, of Seaham, County Durham, has branded the verdict a miscarriage of justice and is meeting Conservative MP Crispin Blunt, parliamentary under-secretary of state for prisons and probation, today.

Last night he told The Northern Echo: “I am after a retrial and want the support for that from this meeting.

“I won’t be happy until I know that Thakrar is going to spend the rest of his life behind bars.”

Thakrar, 24, from Hertfordshire, was jailed for life for his part in the 2007 murders of three men and the attempted murder of two women in Bishop’s Stortford.

On March 13, 2010 he stabbed Mr Wylde in the chest, slashing deeply into his armpit and left arm, severing nerves and an artery, before he attacked his colleagues.

Mr Wylde was left unable to work and now takes about 30 tablets a day to dull his pain following the attack.

Mr Wylde, who was presented with a medal for bravery following the incident, has collected a 2,500-name petition in support of his campaign.

He added: “Now he has claimed PTSD, it is going to be very hard for other officers in the future.

“It is important that prison officers can go to work in a safe environment and know that they will get backing if something like this happens.”

Last night, former convict Mark Leech, editor of the national prisoners’ newspaper Converse, dismissed the calls for a retrial as “sour grapes”

and said there was no justification.

Mr Leech said: “Under the Criminal Justice Act 2003, only the Court of Appeal can authorise a retrial and even then it needs the consent of the Director of Public Prosecutions, who can only agree where there is compelling new evidence.”