A knife thug once branded ‘Scotland’s most dangerous teen’ has appeared back in court after he was caught with a blade and a phone in his prison cell.

Darren Cornelius, 35, was found to have the knife and the mobile device hidden in his cell during a routine search at HMP Edinburgh on October 7 last year.

Cornelius pleaded guilty to possessing the phone and knife at a hearing at Edinburgh Sheriff Court last month and was due to appear for sentencing on Wednesday, April 16.

But the con failed to appear after it emerged he had been the victim of a prison attack that is believed to be linked to the recent gangland war that has erupted in Edinburgh and Glasgow.

Cornelius did appear in the dock on Tuesday but the court was told his lawyer was not present and the sentencing diet was deferred further to next month. Details of the latest offence are still to be read out in open court.

Four men will appear at the Edinburgh Sheriff Court today, each charged in connection with fire-raising at a house on Pitcairn Grove on Thursday, May 8 | Getty Images

Cornelius was first caged aged just 11 when he was sent to a young offenders institution for stabbing a nine-year-old schoolgirl in Edinburgh in 2000.

He abducted the girl from her grandmother’s house before stabbed her eight times - narrowly missing the artery in her throat - and then left her for dead near the city’s Fountain Park leisure complex.

He avoided an attempt murder conviction due to his low mental age but was ordered to spend 17 months in secure accommodation. Cornelius was then handed a life term for a random knife attack in the capital’s Bruntsfield in 2007 and had 10 years added for slashing gangland hitman Marcelo Pacitti at HMP Edinburgh in 2018.

Pacitti was convicted in August 2007 at the High Court in Glasgow of murdering George Walker, who had a role in the Ken Loach directed movie Sweet Sixteen.

Pacitti shot Mr Walker as he sat in his home in August 2006. He was with his father, also called George, who was believed to have been the intended target of the killing.

Cornelius was subsequently sentenced to a further 16 months for a blade attack on two prison warders at HMP Shotts, Lanarkshire, in 2022.

Edinburgh man who stabbed schoolgirl when he was just 11 back in court after being found with blade