Prison officers will be given tasers to defend themselves after three suffered horrific injuries in an attack by Manchester Arena bombing accomplice Hashem Abedi. Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood announced prison staff will be given the weapons as a pilot scheme and the arrangement become permanent in the future.
Three officers have been treated in hospital with life-threatening injuries included burns and stab wounds after the attack at HMP Frankland in County Durham. Abedi, 28, who was jailed for life for helping his brother carry out the 2017 suicide bombing, threw hot cooking oil over the officers and used “home made weapons” to stab them.
Ms Mahmood said: “The bravery of the officers involved that day undoubtedly saved lives. My thoughts are with them as they recover.”
She said the families of the victims of the 2017 bombing, which killed 22 people and injured 1,017, were “understandably outraged”.
Prisoners in separation centres and in close supervision centres no longer had access to kitchens, she said, and an independent review would look at how the attack happened.
Ms Mahmood said: “HM Prison and Probation Service will trial the use of tasers in our prisons. Wherever we can strengthen our defences to better protect our staff and the public we will do so.”
A review would also look at the use of protective body armour, she said.
The attack took place in a separation centre at HMP Frankland where Abedi has been a long-term inmate. That centre, which holds fewer than 10 inmates, is used to house prisoners regarded as the most dangerous and extremist.
Abedi’s brother Salman Abedi carried out the Manchester Arena suicide bombing which killed 22 people. Hashem Abedi was found guilty in 2020 of 22 counts of murder, attempted murder and conspiracy to cause an explosion likely to endanger life and sentenced to a minimum term of at least 55 years before he could be considered for parole.
The sentence was a record for a determinate prison term.
In 2022, Abedi, along with two others, was found guilty of a previous attack on two prison officers at Belmarsh Prison in south-east London.
A sentence of three years and 10 months for this attack was added to his previous minimum term.
Shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick has called the attack “extremely concerning”. He said following the incident: “There are serious concerns about the prison leadership’s ability to contain the threat from Islamist extremist inmates.
“This deeply serious security failure must be a turning point,” he added as he referenced a previous social media post of his titled “Britain’s prisons are being overrun by Islamist gangs”.
