A PRISONER jailed for attempting to murder his ex-partner and injecting heroin into their baby daughter’s mouth has died in custody.

Roger Weir from Poole was jailed for 18 years at Winchester Crown Court for a brutal assault in which he attacked his victim with a meat cleaver and an axe.

The woman was forced to run for her life, naked and blood-soaked, following the attack at her home in Alexander Square, Eastleigh in May 2012.

Weir, now 52, was jailed for 18 years at Winchester Crown Court after admitting attempted murder and administering a noxious substance.

He was serving his sentence at HMP Berwyn in Wrexham, North Wales but was admitted to the local Maelor Hospital on October 16 with severe abdominal pains.

He died in the intensive therapy unit on October 28. A post-mortem examination was carried out by Home Office pathologist Dr Brian Rodgers who gave the provisional cause of death as cancer of the liver.

At a brief hearing in Ruthin, John Gittins, coroner for North Wales East and Central, said it was mandatory to hold an inquest as Weir was in police custody at the time.

The inquest was opened and adjourned to a date to be fixed.

In 2012 Winchester Crown Court heard how Weir, who lived in Slough Lane, Poole, went to his victim’s flat in Eastleigh on May 7 of that year, armed with a specially-adapted flare gun capable of firing bullets.

He told her “I want you dead” before firing the gun at her, then beat her with a baton and attacked her with a meat cleaver.

She managed to escape and raise the alarm, and police found her covered in blood. Weir told police he was angry that she had a new partner.

The court also heard how he squirted heroin into the mouth of his 20-month-old daughter to “get at” her mother.

He admitted administering a noxious substance but the prosecution accepted he had not wanted to murder the toddler, having acted “in the heat of the moment”. The baby spat most of the heroin out and was not harmed.

Weir addressed the judge to apologise for his actions.