A PERTH prisoner was sentenced to a maximum five years in prison yesterday after admitting torturing a fellow inmate in a bid to find drugs.

Colin McGhee (24), originally of Cupar and now a prisoner in Dumfries, is already serving a 12-year sentence for attempted murder and his solicitor admitted his latest offence would seriously affect his chances of getting parole.

His accomplice, Dundee man Joseph Horsburgh (24), was given an extra 27 months to serve at the end of his current sentence, being served in Aberdeen.

Depute fiscal Hannah Kennedy said the pair acted on a prison rumour that Jamie Milne—recently imprisoned for 90 days in Perth—was “packing” heroin internally.

They entered Mr Milne’s cell during a recreation period, locked the door behind them and threatened him with homemade weapons, forcing him into a series of degrading acts as they tried to find the drugs.

After almost an hour of intimidation, including holding a sharpened screw against his head and a shard of glass to his neck, they still had not recovered any drugs and gave up.

McGhee also kicked Mr Milne in the side of the head. At one point, after around 25 minutes, Horsburgh said they had gone too far and stopped his attack and Sheriff Lindsay Foulis took this into account in handing down his lighter sentence.

The duo then left the cell, with McGhee warning his victim he would murder him if he told any of the prison officers what they had done.

As the pair laughed in the dock, Sheriff Foulis said, “The effects of such events can have very serious results as far as prison discipline is concerned.”

He told McGhee that if the matter had gone to trial and he had been found guilty thereafter, he would have remitted sentence to the High Court as he felt the crimes deserved a six-year sentence.