RSA killer Bell's bad-mouthing led to eye stabbing

RSA murderer William Bell was attacked with a home-made weapon. Photo / Glenn Jeffrey

If Auckland RSA triple killer William Bell had only stopped making derogatory comments about his victims, he may not have been stabbed in the eye by a fellow prisoner.

Bell was set upon by convicted murderer Dean Shepherd while alone in a telephone room at Auckland Prison at Paremoremo in December 2007.

Shepherd was sentenced to 10 years in prison - concurrent to a 17-year term he is serving for the 2004 murder of his landlady - when he appeared in the High Court at Auckland yesterday.

The 49-year-old will be eligible for parole in 2022.

Shepherd had told a probation officer he stabbed Bell with a sharpened piece of steel from a ringbinder because he was sick of hearing him talk about his crimes, the court was told.

Bell, is serving 30 years for shooting dead Mt Wellington-Panmure RSA club member Wayne Johnson, 56, and beating to death with a shotgun William Absolum, 63, and Mary Hobson.

He also beat Susan Couch so badly she lost 80 per cent of her blood and was left brain damaged.

Justice Pamela Andrews said Shepherd was feeling paranoid and believed Bell was going to harm him.

"You were angry because he openly discussed his offending and made derogatory comments about his victims."

She said Shepherd spent two hours sharpening the pieces of metal from the ringbinder before hiding them in a red bucket.

He had been on cleaning duties the day of the attack, and began "psyching" himself up to attack, the minute he saw Bell.

"You lunged at his left eye."

Prison guards rushed to Bell's aid after hearing his screams, finding him with a fractured eye socket and cuts to his head.

Justice Andrews said although Shepherd told his lawyer he had now "made peace" with Bell, he had originally shown little remorse.

Justice Andrews noted that Shepherd was receiving help inside Paremoremo for his violent tendencies and a psychologist's report showed Shepherd was responding well to his anti-psychotic medication.

Shepherd, the third eldest of nine children, grew up in a poor family in Kaeo, where he saw his father beating his mother at an early age.

Shepherd was expelled from school when he was 13 years old and by the following year was drinking heavily. Four years later, at the age of 18, he was taking methamphetamine.