A JAIL inmate has had 11 months added to his sentence after he created two home-made knives.

Junior Cleverly was serving a sentence for drug dealing at Channings Wood Prison near Newton Abbot when he made the weapons by lashing sharpened pieces of metal onto broken broom handles with torn-up sheets.

The knives were more than a foot long with three inch blades and would have caused serious injury if they had been used, Exeter Crown Court was told.

Cleverly, aged 23, of Southampton, admitted two counts of possessing weapons in prison and was jailed for 11 months by Judge Peter Johnson.

He will serve the new sentence after finishing a three year, nine month term imposed for drug dealing at Southampton Crown Court in December 2019.

Judge Johnson told him: ‘These were clearly dangerous weapons and these are serious offences.’

Mr Nigel Wraith, prosecuting, said a prison officer saw him with an object in his waistband as he returned to his cell after a group domestic period on August 7 last year.

He was later found with the home-made weapon. The second weapon was almost identical and was found in a cell search on November 17.

Mr Barry White, defending, said Cleverley had never used or even brandished the knives and had them for his own protection.

He said: ‘He had been subjected to the ordinary prison threats. He had heard about attacks and felt out of his depth.’

Mr White said Cleverley was born in South Africa but grew up in Southampton. He turned to drug dealing after losing his job as an agency cleaner.

Cleverley was serving a sentence at Channings Wood for dealing in heroin at Mayflower Park, Southampton on May 14, 2018.

Police recovered six small bags of heroin which had a street value of £10 apiece. He was on bail from Norwich Crown Court at the time, having been caught dealing crack and heroin in Great Yarmouth in January 2017.

He was found with the more than 50 wraps when police raided an address in Ordnance Road in Great Yarmouth and jailed for three years and two months in September 2018.