A former paratrooper who shot dead two of his colleagues in Iraq was battered with a metal bar as he worked out in a high security hospital gym, a court heard. David O'Brien has now been jailed for life for attempting to murder fellow patient Daniel Fitzsimons at Ashworth psychiatric hospital, the Liverpool Echo reports.
Fitzsimons, formerly of Middleton, was jailed for 20 years in 2011 after killing Paul McGuigan and Darren Hoare two years earlier. He opened fire on the pair with a Glock 9mm pistol while all three were working for G4S on a private security contract in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad in 2009.
He had joined the Royal Fusiliers at the age of 16 and became a private security guard after leaving the Army. Fitzsimons had been working with dad-of-two Mr McGuigan, originally from Droylsden, and Australian Mr Hoare, but shot and killed the two men within 36 hours of arriving in Iraq.
