A MAN has been jailed for 20 months for scalding a relative of dead crime clan matriarch Big Mags Haney with boiling sugared water.

Vincent Robertson, 54, a Glenochil Prison inmate at the time, was seen carrying a kettle into fellow prisoner James Kerr Cowan's cell.

Seconds later, Cowan's screams could be heard around the landing, Falkirk Sheriff Court was told.

Robertson then "left quickly" and warders were alerted that something was wrong by Kerr Cowan's yells.

Kerr Cowan, then 40, was found with second-degree burns on his chest and abdomen already beginning to blister.

He was given first aid by a prison nurse before being sent to hospital.

Kerr Cowan, from Stirling, hit the headlines in 2014 when police found him "in a state of agitation" with a Stanley knife hidden between his buttocks.

Despite over 100 previous convictions, he was, on that occasion, sentenced to supervision, after admitting possessing a bladed weapon.

Roberston, from Fife, whose address was given on court papers as now of Barlinnie Prison, Glasgow, pleaded guilty to assaulting Kerr Cowan to his injury.

Prosecutor Graham McLachlan told the court that at the time of the sugaring on February 24 last year, Robertson was in Glenochil serving a sentence imposed at Dundee. He was freed in September on a supervised release order.

On Thursday Sheriff Craig Caldwell imposed the 20 month jail term, backdated to December, after reading background reports.

He said: "This is an extremely serious offence. Significant injury may have been caused to this other man, whatever offence he may have caused you."