Guards injured in prison riot
RIOTING prisoners assaulted a woman guard and threw a jug of sugary scalding water into her male colleague’s face in a fierce outbreak of violence at a low-risk jail.
The riot, which came after the Prison Officers’ Association warned of a rise in jail violence, broke out at about 5pm in a young offenders’ wing which houses around 60 prisoners aged 18 to 21.
The two injured guards were understood to be trying to bring the disturbance under control when they were attacked. The male officer suffered facial burns but was discharged from the prison hospital with his female colleague last night.
Inmates at Littlehey, near Huntingdon, Cambs, a Category C prison, set fire to a wing, smashed windows and vandalised residential units as they tried to take control of the site yesterday.
Prison officers in riot gear finally brought the unit under control at around 9.30pm. An internal investigation is now underway.
A POA executive said: “They set fire to part of the wing and smashed, tables, chairs, TVs, windows – anything they could break.”
Yesterday the POA said prison staff were engaging in weekly “hand-to-hand combat” in prisons. On New Year’s Day, balaclava-clad inmates torched buildings at Ford Open Prison, near Arundel, West Sussex, after an attempted alcohol clampdown.