A prison inmate has been ordered to serve an extra four months after he used a home-made blade to threaten warders.

Vidal Ritchie was in Exeter Prison awaiting sentence when he sharpened a piece of plastic which he brandished at an officer in the segregation unit.

Ritchie was being kept apart from other inmates after being caught with a similar makeshift weapon the week before. He claimed he needed it to protect himself from violent prisoners.

He was on remand for a string of offences including ramming a police car in Plymouth and smuggling drugs and phones into Channings Wood Prison in Newton Abbot.

Ritchie, aged 30, of Limburners Road, Plympton, admitted having a bladed article in prison and was jailed for four months by Recorder Mr William Mousley, QC, at Exeter Crown Court.

The time will be added on at the end of the four years he was sentenced to at Exeter in April.

The judge told him: ‘This was in a prison setting, where security must be maintained and those serving sentences must know that if they behave like this there will be consequences.’

Mr Ian Graham, prosecuting, said Ritchie was in the segregation unit at Exeter Prison on January 27 this year when he was seen by a member of staff with the sharpened makeshift plastic blade.

The prison officer felt threatened and backed off. He called for support and Ritchie dropped the blade after other officers arrived.

He had received an internal adjudication from the governor for having a blade the previous week.

Mr Stephen Nunn, mitigating, said Ritchie made the blade because he felt under threat from other prisoners and had no intention of using it against prison staff.

He said he may well have received no further punishment if the case had been dealt with alongside his other offences in April.

He said: ‘He felt frustration over property which he thought had been stolen from him and thought the authorities had not taken enough notice.

‘He was on medication at the time and was suffering from stress and anxiety. No harm came to anyone. He did not have it to threaten staff. They were not his problem.’