It was blood on blood - a vicious attack in one of the state's most notorious prisons on the state's most notorious former fugitive.
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Malcolm Naden has survived a savage bashing by a second cousin, who had armed himself with the handle of a sandwich toaster in a yard of Goulburn's Correctional Facility and beat his relative senseless.
The irony of being attacked by his own blood may be lost on Naden, the former abattoir worker serving a life sentence for the murder of one cousin, Lateesha Nolan, and the partner of another, Kristy Scholes.
But it has not been lost on his relatives, who reiterated yesterday that the former Dubbo boy would have known about his family's promise of vengeance against anyone found to have hurt Ms Nolan, even before Naden became the prime suspect.
''We would be happy to see Malcolm get one of these every week,'' one relative told the Newcastle Herald.
Naden, 40, had settled into life in the Goulburn prison.
Most of the time it is a solitary life, but there was still limited interaction with other prisoners.
But whether Naden ever suspected Dean Nolan as a threat is not known.
Nolan, the 31-year-old cousin of both Naden and Lateesha's mothers, is himself serving a 25-year jail term for a vicious murder of a young boy.
But he only had one person on his mind on November 24 when he armed himself with the handle of a sandwich toaster and focused on a bloke who had caused pain to their wider families.
It was about 2.20pm on that Sunday afternoon when Nolan lunged at Naden in a yard, cracking him several times about the head before he was subdued by staff at the prison.
A NSW Corrective Services spokeswoman confirmed yesterday that Naden was hurt, but only described the injuries as being minor head and facial wounds.
''He was taken to hospital for treatment and returned the same day,'' the spokeswoman said.
But police would later charge Nolan with reckless wounding, a charge which rates very high in the seriousness of assault counts.
Nolan has since been sentenced to 12 months' jail on the reckless wounding charge and three months for possessing an offensive implement.
Considering he is not due for parole until at least 2026, it is unclear how concerned Nolan is about the latest sentence.
Sources say Naden was comfortable with his surrounds at Goulburn, the anxiety he had suffered after being arrested following seven years on the run now abated.
He had spent more than a month in the Acute Crisis Management Centre at Long Bay jail after being arrested in 2012 near Gloucester.
Naden was sentenced to life imprisonment last year for the murders of Ms Nolan and Ms Scholes in 2005, as well as the attempted murder of a police officer he shot while on the run near Nowendoc, and child sex assault charges.
