Umbrella Killer Admits Prison Assault

A killer who stabbed a man to death in Glasgow with an umbrella has had his time behind bars extended for attacking a fellow prisoner. Gerald Rowatt, 42, punched Christopher Mason on the head at Low Moss prison earlier this year. Mason - who suffered a cut head and needed four stitches - alerted staff after the attack on him. Rowatt pled guilty at Glasgow Sheriff Court to the assault on May 29, this year. Passing a sentence of 328 days, Sheriff Kenneth Mitchell: "You're not entitled to assault another prisoner". He told Rowatt: "Crimes of this sort cannot be tolerated." Rowatt's release date for the killing is in September 2017 but he will now serve his new sentence after that. The court heard Rowatt was given permission to go into Mason's cell in the Clyde Wing of Low Moss prison after being invited in by him. He left the cell area but returned to it with two other inmates. It was then Rowatt punched Mason to the right side of his head - making him bleed. Mason was able to get up and make his way out of the cell and alert staff. In December 2004 Rowatt used an umbrella to fatally attack 55 year old John Rennie, the assault severing Rennie's carotid artery. Rowatt was jailed for nine years after admitting culpable homicide at the High Court in Glasgow. The killing took place on the 13th floor of Blythswood Court, Anderston, Glasgow, on December 3, 2004. Judge Lord Wheatley told Rowatt: 'I have taken into account that you had nothing to do with how this incident started but at the end of this, you found yourself holding a metal shaft - a lethal weapon.' The court heard that Rennie, who lived in the high-rise, had gone with pals to find a man who sold him a faulty phone. An argument broke out when Rowatt answered the flat door.