A PRISON officer broke down as she told a court how she thought she was going to die when a convicted killer stabbed her in the back with a broken bottle.

Claire Lewis was working at Frankland High Security Prison, near Durham, when she and two colleagues were attacked by Kevan Thakrar, Newcastle Crown Court heard yesterday.

Thakrar, 23, who was serving a life sentence for a triple murder, had barricaded himself inside his cell for nearly 24 hours before the attack on March 13 last year.

He planned to lure the guards to his door before attacking them with the broken bottle, the court was told.

Thakrar, from Stevenage, Hertfordshire, denies the attempted murder of officers Craig Wylde and Miss Lewis and the wounding with intent of a third guard, Neil Walker, during the same incident.

He claims he attacked the officers in self defence in a “pre-emptive” strike following ill-treatment and abuse at the jail, the jury heard.

Thakrar was jailed in 2008 by a judge at St Albans Crown Court for three murders and two attempted murders, and was admitted to G Wing at Frankland in March 2010.

He used his cell locker to barricade his cell door on March 12 following a row over the downgrading of his prison privileges.

The next morning, he contacted Miss Lewis, who had worked at the prison for six years before the attack, and asked to see the prison nurse.

As officers Wylde and Lewis prepared to open his door, Thakrar armed himself with the broken end of a 285ml glass bottle of hot pepper sauce he had hidden in his cell.

He leapt out and stabbed the weapon towards Mr Wylde’s chest, slashing deeply into his armpit and left arm, severing nerves and an artery.

When the officers turned and ran, Thakrar followed Miss Lewis along the prison landing shouting: “I’m going to kill her.”

He plunged the broken bottle into her back, inflicting a deep wound which left a shard of glass embedded, and narrowly missed her spine.

Miss Lewis, who has been unable to return to work since the attack, broke down in tears in court as she recounted her ordeal.

She said: “I could feel the blood rushing out. I thought I was going to die.”

Thakrar then turned to face Neil Walker, who had come to his colleague’s aid, and said: “Come on.”

Mr Walker was slashed across the face, head and torso as he attempted to disarm the killer.

Tim Gittins, prosecuting, said: “His clear intention was to kill each of them.

“He calmly and carefully lured the officers to his door having armed himself with that item with the intent of doing fatal damage and violence to those officers.”

He was transferred from Frankland to Wakefield prison after the attacks.

Thakrar claimed in police interviews the bottle had been placed in his cell by prison guards in the hope that he would use it to harm himself or kill himself.

He said he used the bottle as a weapon only after hearing them plotting to attack him as he was barricaded in his cell.

He said his time in the prison system had led to him suffering post-traumatic stress disorder, and that each of the officers he attacked had assaulted him and abused him racially during his time at Frankland.

The slightly built defendant spoke only to enter not guilty pleas to two additional, alternative charges of wounding with intent against Mr Wylde and Miss Lewis.

The trial, before Mr Justice Simon, is expected to last between three and four weeks.

The trial continues.