Prisons service reviews protective gear for guards after Manchester bomb plotter attack

17 April 2025, 20:45

The Prison Service will investigate whether frontline staff should be given protective body armour following an attack on officers by Manchester bomb plotter Hashem Abedi.

The guards were attacked with hot oil and homemade weapons at HMP Frankland in County Durham on Saturday.

Four prison officers were injured during the incident, with three sustaining serious injuries and taken to hospital, Counter Terrorism Policing North East said on Thursday.

One officer remains in hospital.

The Ministry of Justice has pledged to carry out a review following the incident, but the further announcement comes as union bosses have been calling for officers to be given stab vests and protective equipment after the incident shows “how dangerous our job is”.

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The Ministry of Justice has also suspended access to kitchens in separation units in prisons, where the attack is believed to have taken place in Frankland.

Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood said: “I share the country’s shock and anger at the attack on our prison officers at HMP Frankland last weekend.

“It is clear there are further questions to answer, and more that must be done.

“For that reason, we are carrying out an independent review into these events.

“This will look into how this was able to happen, and what we must do to better protect our prison officers in the future.

“This review will look specifically at this attack, but also more widely at how separation centres are run.”

The Lord Chancellor added: “The Prison Service will also conduct a snap review into whether protective body armour should be made available to frontline staff.”

The probe is expected to report back its findings in the next few months.

Ms Mahmood also said there will be an audit on carrying out 230 recommendations from 19 reviews looking at extremism in prisons.

“I know full well the dangers of the warped ideology of Islamist extremists.

“I will not tolerate it within our prisons.

“Wherever I find there is opportunity to strengthen our defences and better protect our staff and the public, I will do so.”

A chairperson to lead the independent review is yet to be appointed.

Abedi, who was being held at HMP Frankland for his role in the deadly attack eight years ago, reportedly had access to the kitchen in the prison's separation centre.

The POA said that he had used home-made weapons to stab the guards. At least one of the victims was a female police officer.

Abedi was transferred to the separation centre at HMP Full Sutton after the attack.

But he is understood to have since been sent back to Belmarsh prison, where he was previously found guilty of attacking a prison officer in 2020.

Abedi has been put in a highly-controlled "suite" cell - a unit monitored by a minimum of five people at any one time as well as a prison dog.

There are only four of the cells across England and Wales.

He has also been given a spork to eat his food with, raising concerns over further violence.

It comes after the government said it will commission a review into the incident at HMP Frankland and suspended kitchen use in prison separation centres.

In an open letter to Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood and the MoJ, survivor Martin Hibbert said he was "absolutely disgusted - beyond words" to hear about the attack.

"Let's call this what it is: a catastrophic failure of your duty to protect prison staff and the public from an unrepentant terrorist," he wrote in the letter posted on social media.

"Not only was Abedi allowed the freedom to move around and use facilities that should never be available to someone like him - he was able to track and target three prison guards using boiling oil and homemade weapons."

Abedi was served a life sentence with a minimum term of 55 years for helping his brother carry out the bombing of an Ariana Grande concert at Manchester Arena in 2017.

Some 22 people died, and over 1,000 were injured in the terrorist attack.