'Missed chances' to halt race killing in cell

Prison staff missed 14 opportunities to prevent the murder of Zahid Mubarek by his racist cellmate, an inquiry heard today.

Five danger signals should have warned warders at Feltham Young Offender Institution that killer Robert Stewart, who had a history of violence and a personality disorder, should never have been put in a cell with the nineteen-year-old Asian.

And during the seven weeks the two men shared a cell, there were nine "key moments" when staff might have averted the tragedy.

Stewart, 24, is serving a life sentence for bludgeoning Mr Mubarek to death with a broken table leg in February 2000, hours before the teenager was due to be released.

A public inquiry into the murder was opening today after the victim's parents went to the House of Lords to demand a full investigation into their son's death.

Stewart admitted for the first time today the killing was racist - a fact he denied at his murder trial. In a written statement to the inquiry, he claimed he carried out the attack to obtain a transfer to a different prison, and intended only to hurt his victim.

The claim that prison staff missed 14 chances to prevent the murder came from barrister Nigel Giffen, the inquiry's counsel, in his opening statement.

He described how, in the three years before Stewart arrived at Feltham, staff at other prisons had noticed his eccentric behaviour including eating soap and setting fire to his trousers.

Stewart has RIP tattooed on his forehead and, in 1998, his best friend in Stoke Heath Prison stabbed a fellow inmate to death in a cookery lesson. Stewart was thought to have handed the killer a knife but was never charged.

A racist letter sent by Stewart was also intercepted by warders. Yet when he was transferred to Feltham in February 2000, he was put straight into a cell with Mr Mubarek because it was the last place available. On several occasions staff failed to read files containing warnings about Stewart's record. Checks on cell 38 failed to uncover the table leg used as the murder weapon. Mr Mubarek's parents were at the Royal Courts of Justice today for inquiry, chaired by Mr Justice Keith.