Michael Adebowale: Lee Rigby killer pleads guilty to assaulting nurse

Convicted murderer will serve eight months after his 45 year minimum term is complete

Michael Adebowale is currently serving his minimum 45-year sentence at Broadmoor while he is treated for paranoid schizophrenia (PA)

One of the killers of soldier Lee Rigby has pleaded guilty to assaulting a nurse at Broadmoor Hospital.

Michael Adebowale has admitted to punching a healthcare assistant while being held in the top security hospital on 20 July last year.

Adebowale denied a more serious charge of inflicting grievous bodily harm but admitted an alternative charge of assault causing actual bodily harm.

He was given an eight-month prison sentence at Reading Crown Court on Monday which will be served after his 45-year minimum term for the murder of the British soldier in 2013.

The convicted murderer is currently serving his sentence at Broadmoor as he is being treated for paranoid schizophrenia.

In May 2013, Adebowale and Michael Adebolajo ran over the 25-year-old Fusilier close to Woolwich barracks before stabbing him to death in broad daylight.

Fusilier Rigby died as a result of multiple wounds from the attack, which was fuelled by the two men's extremist beliefs.

At their murder trial in 2014, the judge told Adebowale and Adebolajo that their extremist views were "a betrayal of Islam".

During Monday's hearing, the court was told that Adebowale has spent three periods in Broadmoor since his conviction and is expected to spend the next "five or 10 years" in the hospital.

Prosecutor Sarah Whitehouse QC said the defendant punched the nurse, Jason Taplin, in the jaw after he was asked to turn down the volume of a television he was playing music through.

Mr Taplin was then taken to hospital and examined.

As it was disputed whether the injury had broken his jaw bone, Adebowale was able to plead guilty to the lesser charge and avoid a trial.

Sasha Wass QC, mitigating, said Adebowale suffers from "chronic paranoid schizophrenia" and heard voices telling him to attack Mr Taplin before the incident.

"His medication was not sufficient to deal with the psychotic state he experienced on 20 July of last year and as a result of that state he administered the blow," she told the court.

When the judge, Mr Justice Jay, passed down the eight-month sentence, he said: "There was a dispute between you and Mr Taplin.

"I have absolutely no doubt Mr Taplin was in the right and you were in the wrong."

Nevertheless, the judge accepted Adebowale had heard voices before the attack.

"The injury would have been very painful for a period of time, possibly a considerable period of time and I hope you sincerely regret that," he told the defendant.

Additional reporting by PA