A DOUBLE rapist who slashed serial killer Peter Tobin in the face while he was sleeping in his prison cell has been sentenced to 32 months behind bars.

Sean Moynihan attacked Tobin, leaving his permanently scarred, at Saughton Prison the day after he was convicted of his second rape. He claimed to have carried out the attack because the murderer was "annoying" him.

Sheriff Nigel Ross told Moynihan at Edinburgh Sheriff Court: "This was a cowardly attack on a sleeping man, leaving a disfiguring scar down the whole side of his face."

Moynihan, 31 and now a prisoner in Glenochil, had pled guilty previously to severely injuring and permanently disfiguring 69-year old Tobin in his cell on July 1 this year with a razor blade fitted to a handle.

The sheriff heard that Tobin, who is serving three life sentences for murdering Angelika Kluk, Vicky Hamilton and Dinah McNicol, was asleep in his cell when he woke to see Moynihan standing over him, slashing him on the face.

Tobin struggled with him and after Moynihan left the cell, Tobin rang the cell alarm.

A prison officer saw Moynihan with blood on his right arm. He was found to have a razor with a handle in his pocket and he told the officer: "I slashed Tobin across the throat and face."

When he was later interviewed and asked why he had carried out the attack, he replied: "I am never getting out. Tobin has been annoying me for months with his attitude towards his offences and his refusal to tell anyone where the rest of the victims' bodies are."

Tobin was treated at St John's Hospital in Livingston where he was found to have a seven-inch laceration running down the right side of his face and onto his throat. He will be permanently scarred.

Defence solicitor, Charlie McCusker, told Sheriff Ross that Moynihan was due to appear at the High Court in Glasgow today to be sentenced in relation to the rape case. He attacked the 18-year-old in daylight as she walked along a cycle track in Renfrewshire last October.

Sheriff Ross told Moynihan: "This was an assault on a sleeping man in his cell in prison and a custodial sentence is inevitable. This assault is particularly serious because of the location, Prisoners are entitled to serve their sentences without being assaulted."