Interviewed for the Strangeways ITV documentary, killer bodybuilder Michael Sharp painted a bleak picture of life inside Manchester's notorious prison. "There’s no light at the end of the tunnel, so there's a lot of stabbings, a lot of slashings, people boiling up tubs of butter, turning it into oil, throwing that over the faces, over the body, they don't care what they do," he said.
Sharp was just 25-years-old when he was jailed for life for murdering ex-policeman David Ward in a brutal robbery at his West Yorkshire home.
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But violence ran in the family. He'd grown up in the shadow of a notorious dad - ex-heavyweight boxer and alcoholic Paul Sykes.
Once dubbed the the UK's 'hardest lag', Sykes spent much of his adult life behind bars. He came to prominence in the cult documentary, Paul Sykes: At Large, before succumbing to alcoholism and a pitiful death aged 60.
One former Governor of Hull Prison called him a 'short tempered' lag who assaulted staff 'on a number of occasions' and Sykes also left an impression on Charles Bronson. The pair met behind bars and Bronson wrote in his books, Legends: "A notorious hard man from Yorkshire, a fighting man in every sense. A lot of people never liked him, even feared him but I respected the man and what he stood for."
And it appears Sykes' brutality rubbed off on his son. In the early hours of January 23, 2008, just a few months after Sykes' death, Sharp was one of three men who planned to rob Mr Ward - along with the victim's ex-girlfriend, Stacey Foster.
Sharp was in a relationship with Foster who told him that Ward, a car salesman, kept £20,000 in a safe in his home in Wakefield, West Yorks. Sharp and another man, Ryan Hill, broke into the house and confronted Mr Ward, 38, while armed with a hammer, a screwdriver and a knuckle duster.
Mr Ward was then attacked before later being found with his ankles and wrists tied with leather belts in his bathroom. After Sharp was sentenced for the murder, the judge said: “You tied him up while he was still alive and, in order to persuade him to disclose the whereabouts of the safe key, you subjected him to such a degree of violence that he died."
The victim's family said: "We are still struggling to come to terms with losing David in such horrific circumstances. There is not a day goes by that we do not think of him and miss him. He was such a big part of all our lives."
While Sharp was convicted of murder, Hill was found guilty of manslaughter and conspiracy to rob and was ordered to serve a minimum of eight years and nine months in jail. Foster and the other accomplice, Christopher Gill, both pleaded guilty to conspiring to commit aggravated burglary and were handed prison sentences of six years and eight months and nine years respectively.
Once behind bars Sharp's violent tendencies continued. In the 2011 Strangeways documentary he claimed 16 fellow inmates attacked him in gang dispute – but said he managed to escape with just a cut to the head. He said: "Sixteen of them tried rushing me and they didn't get very far.
"They attacked me all wearing prison issue clothing. Some of them had prison issue T-shirts on their heads with holes cut out. They all hard sharp pieces of plastic, glass. I was in a corner so they couldn’t really get me. None of them had heart enough to come in and do the job. They were all backing off, they weren’t coming too close.
"They got me once there [points to head] - 16 of them to do that little cut there, that's it. I haven’t got trouble with anybody. If you’ve got trouble with me then I am going to stand my ground. I would stand my ground, win, lose or draw."
The following year Sharp's reputation would come back to haunt him. While on remand for the Boxing Day murder of Anuj Bidve, Kiaran Stapleton poured a mop bucket full of hot water sugar with sugar over Sharp's head as he played chess on the Category A prison wing.
Known in prison as a 'jugging', the sugar melts in the water so it sticks to his victim's skin. Stapleton then carried on the assault using billiard balls in a sock alongside two friends from Salford armed with pool cues.
Speaking to a prison doctor after the attack an unremorseful Stapleton, then 21, said he had intended to kill Sharp, who he described as a 'bully' who ruled Strangeways with a rod of fear. "[Sharp] was the one that stands out from the rest of them, loud, abusive, threatening, bullying to people... everyone on the wing," he said.
Stapleton admitted he had not been bullied himself but claimed he was 'doing it for others, putting his own hand in'.
"I'm in here for murder, not shoplifting," he told doctors. "Guys see me differently now, I kept myself to myself but now they respect me and guards are more concerned, they say I am unpredictable."
Sharp was badly scalded in the assault, the court heard. On Friday, July 27, 2012 Stapleton was sentenced to life in prison with a minimum term of 30 years before he was eligible for parole.
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