13 prison officers taken to hospital after young gang members run riot
THIRTEEN prison officers were taken to hospital after being attacked by teenagers at a young offenders’ institution.
The guards were among 20 assaulted in separate incidents at HMP Feltham in west London at the weekend.
One officer suffered a broken nose and another was concussed after being repeatedly punched in the head.
The notorious facility has faced a battle to keep gang rivalries in check after ‘postcode’ allegiances caused conflict among inmates. The Prison Service said the assaults, in which seven members of staff were bitten, were ‘completely unacceptable’.
A prison minibus was commandeered to drive injured officers to hospital.
The attacks are further evidence of the crisis blighting prisons in England and Wales, where self-harm, drug-fuelled violence and assaults on staff are at record highs. The disturbance took place in the section of the institution known as Feltham A which accommodates 180 boys, most aged 16 and 17. The other part of the facility, Feltham B, holds offenders aged 18 to 21.
The perpetrators will face adjudication hearings over the next few days and could face police prosecution.
A Prison Service spokesman said: ‘We will never tolerate violence against our staff and will push for the strongest possible punishment, which could lead to them spending more time behind bars.’
Mark Fairhurst, chairman of the Prison Officers’ Association, said violence had been escalating at Feltham for weeks partly due to changes in the way it deals with misbehaving inmates.
Until December, they could be locked in a cell in the segregation block, known as the Care, Separation and Reintegration Unit, which is located in Feltham B.
But after the High Court ruled in 2017 that a 16-year-old had been held unlawfully in the block, and inspectors described the regime there as ‘impoverished’ and ‘punitive’, its use was reduced and eventually stopped. Mr Fairhurst
‘Not able to stop themselves’
said the lack of effective punishments for the most challenging prisoners was putting staff at risk. He added: ‘The violence against staff at HMP Feltham over the weekend is not acceptable.
‘Replace the term “children” with “violent young criminals” and you more accurately describe what union members in the juvenile estate face.’
Last month, the Independent Monitoring Board warned the Ministry of Justice that it needed to take ‘urgent measures’ to make Feltham safer after a rise in gang-related violence. It said: ‘Gang-related loyalties are so great that they would not be able to stop themselves assaulting members from a rival gang, whether they know them or not.’