Man once branded 'Scotland's most dangerous teen' back in court after being caught with blade

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 earlier this year 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.

Darren Cornelius appeared at Edinburgh Sheriff Cour | PA

Cornelius did appear in the dock on Tuesday where he was handed an 80 day custodial jail term by Sheriff John Cook that will run consecutively to his current sentence.

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 stabbing 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 attempted 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.