Prison guards attacked by violent inmates were handed more than £10million in compensation in the last five years, shock figures show. Some 202 injured officers have netted Ministry of Justice payouts since 2019/20 – totalling £10.3 million and averaging at £51,000 per person. Our revelation comes just days after Hashem Abedi, brother of the Manchester Arena bomber, launched a brutal rampage on three guards at HMP Frankland in County Durham. Last night Mark Fairhurst of the Prison Officers’ Association said: “These payments highlight the dangers brave prison officers face on a daily basis. It is now time to reset the entire service, so staff regain control from violent criminals intent on destroying people’s lives. If we stopped appeasing prisoners the public purse would not have to compensate staff who are receiving life-changing injuries. We need control, not chaos.”
Guards have been compensated after a spate of high-profile attacks in recent years. In 2016, a staff member at HMP Bedford netted £600,000 after he was attacked by Plenty of Fish dating site murderer Carl Langdell.
Senior prison officer Iain Fleming was awarded £35,000 in 2014 when he was assaulted in the segregation unit of Swaleside jail in Kent. And in 2017, officer Keith Nyberg, 54, won an undisclosed sum after being kicked, punched and bitten at Wetherby Young Offenders’ Institute.
Some 10,496 assaults on prison staff were logged in the year to September 2024 – a record high.
Rob Preece, Communications Manager at the Howard League for Penal Reform, blames a lack of mental and physical stimulation available to lags. He said: “It should surprise no one that there is tension in crumbling jails where people are being warehoused in cramped cells for 22 hours a day with nothing to do.”
Hashem Abedi, 28, is said to have thrown hot oil over the guards before launching an assault with a weapon last week. He was later been moved to the high security prison at Belmarsh in south London.
Counter-terrorism police are leading the investigation into the attack, which has left prison staff fearing copycat incidents.
Last week, Martin Hibbert, one of the survivors of the Manchester Arena bombing, used an open letter to describe the attack as a “catastrophic failure” of duty by the justice secretary.
Hashem is serving a life sentence for helping his brother Salman Abedi carry out the terrorist bombing at an Ariana Grande concert in 2017 which killed 22 people.
A Ministry of Justice spokesperson said: “This is another sign of the problems we are facing in our prisons, with prisons that are overcrowded and violent.
“This Government is gripping the crisis we inherited. We are building 14,000 new prison places and we will reform sentencing. We will ensure our prisons encourage offenders to turn their backs on crime – and we will make them safer for our hardworking staff.”
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