THE son of a murder victim vowed to torture her killer’s mother in a chilling copycat revenge attack, a court was told yesterday.

Aaron White was said to have sent the death threat to double-killer Gary Vinter after he was jailed for stabbing Anne White last year.

In the letter, 39-year-old Vinter allegedly received at Frankland Prison, in Durham City, he was described as “a misfit and a proper freak”.

The letter said: “I will go and see your mam and see if she is okay, like you did with my mam, who I loved with all my heart.

“So you know what I’m going to do? I’m going to do it nice and slow. It is going to be fun because my mam is worth doing the rest of my life in jail for.”

Vinter, from Middlesbrough, was given a whole life sentence last year for stabbing mother-of-four Ms White to death after kidnapping her.

In 1996, Vinter was jailed for the murder of colleague Carl Edon, 22, who he stabbed to death the previous year.

The Home Office ordered 6ft 7in Vinter should serve ten years, and he was released from prison in 2005.

He moved in with Ms White shortly after his release on licence, and despite protests by her family, they married in July 2006.

They separated early in 2007 after he twice attacked her at their home, but he was soon back behind bars for breaching his licence after a pub brawl.

In July that year, Vinter received a six-month sentence for affray, but last February – shortly after leaving prison again – Vinter killed Ms White, 40.

Vinter was given a whole life tariff – never to be released – in April last year, and was said to have received the letter from White in mid-July.

White was on remand at Castington Young Offenders’ Institution, Northumberland, awaiting trial for another alleged offence at the time.

The 21-year-old, of William Way, Middlesbrough, was charged with making threats to kill and appeared at Teesside Crown Court, yesterday, for trial.

A jury was told he accepted writing the letter from prison, but his defence was to be that Vinter could not have taken the threat seriously.

Vinter was brought from his cell to give evidence, but in a dramatic last-minute twist, claimed he wrote the note himself.

The drug-taking bodybuilder – flanked by four prison guards – told the jury: “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

In statements given to police at the time, Vinter said he feared for his mother’s life, but in court yesterday he said he had made it up.

Rod Hunt, prosecuting, treated the killer as a “hostile witness” and said he had lied in the witness box, describing his act as “a pantomime”.

But after legal discussions – and on the directions of the judge – the jury found White not guilty when Mr Hunt offered no evidence.

Mr Hunt said: “The prosecution can prove that the letter was sent by the defendant from Castington, and can rely on his confession.

“The one who started the ball rolling has no interest in the proceedings and it is not in the public interest to continue given the attitude of the main witness.”

Earlier, Mr Hunt had told the jury that it was not a classic case of the police protecting the rights of someone thoroughly evil rather than somebody good.