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Prison officer stabbed with weapon 'likely sent in by drone', union chief tells LBC News as he warns 'it's a risk every shift'
30 May 2025, 20:50 | Updated: 31 May 2025, 10:28
Prison officers face risk of being attacked on every shift, a union chief has told LBC News after an officer was stabbed on Friday in a high security jail with a weapon that "may have been delivered by drones".
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Mark Fairhurst, National Chair of the Prison Officers’ Association, has warned prison officers are in potential danger whenever they are on the job.
It comes after an inmate stabbed an officer at HMP Long Lartin prison with a weapon Mr Fairhurst says may have been "delivered by drones", which he warned are a "massive security threat at the moment".
The 25-year-old officer remains hospital after sustaining serious injuries.
Speaking to LBC News' Charlotte Lynch, Mr Fairhurst said: "It is extremely sad news and it just highlights how dangerous our job is.
Read more: Prison officer, 25, airlifted to hospital after being stabbed by inmate at high-security prison
"Every single shift we face this type of risk and we need protections in place and we need severe punishments for offenders who commit these atrocious crimes."
He suggested that officers should be provided with stab-proof vests, but added that more needs to be done to both help protect officers and prevent weapons from getting in the hands of inmates.
"We know this particular weapon wasn't a homemade weapon. So it's come in somehow.
"We suspect it may have been delivered by drones, which are a massive security threat at the moment. And we've been asking for years for the technology to block these drones accessing prison airspace.
"We've been asking for years for the technology to block these drones accessing prison airspace."
The stabbing on Friday was not an isolated incident in Britain's prisons, nor was it perhaps completely unexpected.
That's because a report by Charlie Taylor, the Chief Inspector of Prisons, published sic months ago warned of high levels of staff assaults at this jail in particular.
Meanwhile, police are investigating attacks on three prison officers which allegedly occurred over the course of two days at high-security HMP Whitemoor in March.
One of the attacks is said to have involved boiling water.
Mr Fairhurst described it as a "really bad week in the service", but said the "ferocity of attacks on prison staff over the last six months have increased beyond anything we've ever seen before."
"Things need to change. There needs to be a clampdown on violence," he urged.
It comes as the government scrambles to cope with major overcrowding in Britain's prisons system.
Earlier this month, the Ministry of Justice warned on it "will run out of prison places in just five months time” if nothing is done due to significant overcrowding in jails across the country.
It announced three new jails will be built, while David Gauke, former Conservative justice secretary, has been tasked with carrying out a review of sentencing to solve the overcrowding problem in prisons.
Prisons Minister Lord James Timpson told LBC the crisis is "totally unacceptable" as he vowed that his government will tackle the issue.
He told LBC's Andrew Marr: "The crisis that we've inherited in our prison system is one we need to tackle now. And what that means is if the police can't arrest anybody because there's no prison places, the courts can't potentially convict anybody, and then the whole system breaks down.
"So we always need prison places and that's why we're taking these actions. Our predictions are by November, if we don't do anything, we will run out of spaces in the male prison estate, and that is totally unacceptable."
