Vicious killer Alexander Pacteau moved from prison for his own safety

EVIL killer Alexander Pacteau has been moved from his prison cell – to stop fellow convicts dishing out their own brand of justice.

A plot against the brutal murderer emerged at tough Shotts prison, where many of Scotland’s lifers are held.

The senseless killing of 24-year-old Karen Buckley disgusted even hardened criminals, who were desperate to mete out a savage beating, or worse, on Pacteau.

Fearing his life was under threat, SPS chiefs spirited Pacteau out of Shotts nick, moving him to privately-run Kilmarnock prison.

“He was in real danger,” one insider told The Sunday Post.

“He’d become a target to some dangerous people behind bars who are well aware of what he’s done.

“Prison chiefs had no choice but to move him to Kilmarnock from Shotts.

“But he will probably face the same reaction there.”

Prisoners have been known to fashion crude weapons out of everything from broken tiles to toothbrushes.

Another favoured form of attack is to hurl sugar-laced boiling water at a targeted con to intensify the awful burn injuries.

Pacteau was caged and ordered to serve at least 23 years behind bars after he admitted murdering the Cork nurse last year.

After being sentenced last September he was moved from Barlinnie prison – where he had been held on remand – to the notorious Lanarkshire jail.

However, there were accusations the prison had become too “cushy” for lifers following a refurbishment designed to provide a “supportive regime” to ease convicts into penal life.

It meant Pacteau – branded an “evil coward” by Karen’s distraught family – was given access to satellite TV, a personal fitness programme, badminton, volleyball and weight training sessions.

Prisoners like Pacteau were even encouraged to take part in creative writing, crafts and drama at the jail’s new “learning centre”.

Inmates were able to buy televisions and electronic games consoles using an in-house service providing them with Scottish taxpayer-funded ‘wages’.

But while all these mod cons were on offer to Pacteau, he was quickly singled out by fellow inmates who were planning a violent attack on him.

And prison bosses decided to ship him to Kilmarnock after receiving intelligence he had been targeted.

Our prison insider said that Pacteau was a solitary figure in prison life.

“He has kept himself to himself inside and struggled to make any friends behind bars,” said our source.

“He’s very much a loner, which I understand was what he was like outside too.”

He reportedly sparked anger in Glasgow’s Barlinnie prior to his conviction by boasting about his pampered upbringing.

The former private school pupil, who grew up in the leafy town of Milngavie near Glasgow, told prisoners his parents had a maid while he was studying at posh Kelvinside Academy.

Karen went missing in the early hours of April 12, 2015, after leaving the Sanctuary nightclub in Glasgow’s West End.

Pacteau killed her within 20 minutes of meeting and luring her to his car, it emerged during the case.

He battered her with a spanner and strangled her, then attempted to dissolve her body in caustic soda he had bought.

A massive search was launched after she failed to return home from the night out. Her body was found nearly three days later.

Last night, a spokeswoman for the Scottish Prison Service said it did not comment on individual prisoners.

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