Vester Fernando allegedly caught on CCTV stabbing inmate
Inmate Vester Fernando has allegedly been caught in chilling CCTV vision stabbing another inmate in the throat and chest at Kempsey prison. GRAPHIC WARNING
Police & Courts
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Blood-curdling footage has emerged that allegedly shows the moment a prisoner stabs another inmate and leaves him to bleed out while others watch in a NSW prison.
Vester Fernando was charged with the attempted murder of a 26-year-old inmate at Mid North Coast Correctional Facility, in the state’s north, on April 9.
Police allege Fernando and another convict, aged 28, approached the youngest man before Fernando stabbed him multiple times in the neck, chest and back.
CCTV footage shows two men in prison greens grappling in a common area of the prison, one man appears to be wrestled to the ground and stabbed multiple times as blood spills out across the tiled floor.
Other inmates casually walk past, glancing at the gory scene as the purported attacker appears to slide his weapon to guards and lays down awaiting arrest.
Other prison officers rush to help the victim, who has stopped twitching in the pool of blood.
He was flown to John Hunter Hospital in a critical condition but survived.
Fernando’s alleged accomplice was charged with aiding and abetting attempted murder.
The alleged attacker is already serving two life sentences.
The first was for the killing of 21-year-old nurse Sandra Hoare in 1994 after she finished work at Walgett Hospital.
Fernando and his cousin, Brendan Fernando, abducted and raped Ms Hoare and cut her throat – likely with a machete – and left her body in a paddock near the hospital.
The men, who the court heard shared a brothers’ bond, were both given life and were serving their sentences in Lithgow.
But Vester became furious at his cousin when Brendan uttered “a revelation” – he’d made comments to police that implicated Vester in Ms Hoare’s murder.
A week later, in 1999, Vester took a pair of scissors and stabbed Brendan in the chest and throat in the prison auditorium.
Vester’s shiv went through his cousin’s heart and Brendan died on the floor.
He would tell authorities he had “no regrets” about his second murder because it “justified” his prison time.
He was given another 30 years behind bars all the same.
Fernando was ordered to appear via videolink at Coffs Harbour Local Court on April 9, the day after the alleged prison attack, where his matter was adjourned until June 11.
He did not enlist a lawyer.