A convicted murderer stabbed to death a vulnerable fellow inmate in the kitchens at Dartmoor Jail, an inquest has been told.

William Tolcher, now 54, was using a large kitchen knife to chop vegetables when he stabbed 37 year old Alex Cusworth in the back as the victim peeled eggs.

Victim Alexander Cusworth was transferred to Dartmoor Jail in May 2015. On November 26th, 2015, he was murdered by Tolcher, who was serving a life sentence for murdering a woman in Newquay, Cornwall, in 1996.

Cusworth, aged 36, of Barn Park Terrace, Teignmouth, was just six months into an eight year sentence for battering his landlord in an attack with a broomstick.

A nine strong inquest jury at Exeter’s County Hall were told by the senior Devon coroner Philip Spinney that no one was on trial over this prison death and they were not to determine criminal or civil liability.

But he said the two week hearing was to examine the processes at the Devon jail.

Outlining the case, Mr Spinney said Cusworth, who he referred to as Alex, was accepted to work in the jail’s kitchen in September 2015.

Tolcher was transferred to Dartmoor and he too was allowed to start to work in the kitchen some days later even though he had a ‘history of violent behaviour’.

The inquest heard that the inmates were on an afternoon shift and there were three civilian staff in the kitchen - but no prison officers.

Mr Spinney said there was no CCTV of the murder adding: ‘Staff did not see or hear the incident.’

He said:’Tolcher was preparing vegetables with a large kitchen knife issued to people. Alex was stabbed in the back and Tolcher was later convicted of the assault.’

In May 2016 Tolcher was convicted of Alex’s murder and jailed for at least 33 years.

Plymouth Crown Court was told at his trial that Tolcher used the 10 inch long knife ‘to settle a score over his disrespectful behaviour’.

Alex’s mother Ann Edgeller, who fostered and then adopted the abused Alex when he was aged 12, wept as she spoke about his horrific upbringing.

She said he was ‘a loving, caring individual who would give the last coin in his pocket without question’ but had been an unwanted child.

She told the jury of his early life:’He was a little lost soul. He was the runt of a family of seven, begging for food and locked in cupboards.’

Former councillor Mrs Edgeller, from Baswich, Staffordshire, said: ‘I would be there to protect him, for 28 years to fight every corner for my son.’

She said he was vulnerable and exploited by his peers and so called friends and his demons scarred him emotionally and mentally.

Four days before he was murdered, her car broke down four miles from the Devon jail as she was about to visit Alex but she rang him and said:’He sounded so happy, so contented.’

She branded his death as ‘senseless’ saying: ‘He was never given the chance to live a normal life.’

And she cried:’Alex, I am so sorry, so very sorry, I was not there to protect you.’