Woman attacked child-killer mum Theresa Riggi in prison Published duration 10 September 2014

image copyright Central Scotland News Agency image caption Angela Hamilton slashed Riggi in the face when the pair were in Cornton Vale Prison

A female prisoner has been convicted of slashing killer mother Theresa Riggi in the face with a razor while the pair were behind bars.

Angela Hamilton sneaked into Riggi's cell at Cornton Vale Prison in Stirling and attacked her with the blade.

Riggi, who admitted killing her three young children at their Edinburgh home in 2010, was found dead aged 50 at a secure hospital earlier this year.

Hamilton will be sentenced for the assault next month.

The 40-year-old, who was behind bars for perverting the course of justice during her brother's murder trial in 2009, sneaked into Riggi's cell after breakfast on 19 November, 2011, grabbed her by the hair and struck her in the face "repeatedly" with a razor blade.

Prison warders found Riggi screaming and covered in blood, with a clump of hair missing from her head. She was left permanently scarred.

Hamilton denied the attack, but a jury at Stirling Sheriff Court took little more than an hour to find her guilty by majority.

image copyright Deadline News image caption Theresa Riggi admitted killing her three children in August 2010

Riggi, originally from California, was sentenced to 16 years in prison after the deaths of her children in August 2010.

Eight-year-old twins Austin and Luke and their sister Cecilia, five, were each stabbed eight times.

They had moved from Skene, Aberdeenshire, the previous month.

Riggi tried to cover up their deaths with a gas explosion, before trying to kill herself by leaping out of their second-floor flat.

She pleaded guilty to a charge of culpable homicide on the grounds of diminished responsibility.

Following Hamilton's attack, Riggi was moved to Rampton Secure Hospital in Nottinghamshire, where she died from bronchial pneumonia on 10 March.