Hashem Abedi and other terrorists are being allowed to be a continuous threat once jailed

OPINION

The vicious attack on three prison guards last weekend has helped lift the lid on a crisis within our jails which, if not addressed, seems certain to result in the death of at least one prison officer, if not more. While many of you will simply shrug your shoulders, turn away and say you couldn’t give a damn about the lifestyle of our criminal underclass, you should think of the army of prison officers whose job it is to guard these often extremely violent and sometimes unbalanced individuals, and keep us safe from them.

The attack at Frankland prison in County Durham was carefully planned and resulted in a female guard having melted butter thrown in her face, one male colleague suffering a punctured lung from stab wounds and yet another male colleague cheating death by millimetres after the stabbing to his neck narrowly missed a major artery.

The assailant was convicted Islamist terrorist Hashem Abedi, 28, the man who plotted the Ariana Grande Manchester Arena bombing that killed 22 people. He’s serving a life sentence with a minimum term of 55 years and yet despite the horror of his crimes, he would appear to have been afforded almost special status. The kitchen in his “Separation Unit” comes equipped with saucepans and other cooking utensils, cutlery including knives and tin trays. Although the return of all knives seems to be carefully monitored, this is clearly not the case with the trays as he fashioned two makeshift knives from the metal.

Unbelievably, Abedi “has form” in this area as he was convicted of a similar “vicious attack” on a prison officer in Belmarsh jail in Woolwich, South East London, in 2020, which is one of the reasons he was moved to a supposed Category A prison, meant to hold the most dangerous offenders.

But life inside these jails seems more of “A” picnic than anything else. As Abedi was meant to have been perfecting his cooking skills, fellow jailbirds in this special unit convicted of terror offences were busy in the gym.

What the hell is this! Gym classes and a fully equipped kitchen! Is this in reality some style of de-luxe, self-catering holiday accommodation for those who would merrily slit your throat as soon as look at you?

But what this has highlighted is the criminally negligent way in which our justice system has responded to the growing menace of Islamist gang culture behind bars.

Scores of former prisoners have testified since being freed that they have witnessed Islamists bullying inmates to join their gangs. Indeed reportedly in one jail, the secure unit meant to hold the terrorists is actually being used to detain those who refuse to join the gangs as they’re living in fear of reprisals.

There has been a 190% increase in the Muslim population of our jails over the last twenty years or so, and they now account for 18% of the entire prison population.

It’s important to stress these figures palpably misrepresent the genuine Muslim proportion as so many have been intimidated to unjustly lay claim to their faith. But equally, it demonstrates how many of those who have nothing but evil in their hearts towards us appear to be calling the shots behind bars.

This has to end immediately. Is it so wrong to suggest convicted terrorists, who’ve killed and abused the human rights of so many, might lose theirs and be eating cold sandwiches for the rest of their days?