THE Prison Officers’ Association (POA) called today for better safety measures following an attack on guards by Manchester Arena bomb plotter Hashem Abedi.

Mr Abedi threw hot cooking oil over three prison guards at HMP Frankland on Saturday and used home-made weapons to stab them. 

He has since been transferred to Belmarsh high-security jail, it is understood. 

The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) has said it will carry out a review, alongside a separate police inquiry.

But POA national chairman Mark Fairhurst said the government “haven’t even announced who’s doing it yet” or released the terms of reference for the review.

He said the incident “highlights how dangerous our job is.

“We need protective equipment issued to us. The government need to lower our retirement age.”

He noted while strike action is banned for prison officers, there is health and safety legislation that could be considered.

“Everyone deserves to be safe at work,” he said.

He is due to meet the Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood next Wednesday.

A letter written to Ms Mahmood by Martin Hibbet, a survivor of the Manchester arena bombing, said: “Let’s call this what it is: a catastrophic failure of your duty to protect prison staff and the public from an unrepentant terrorist.”

Mr Hibbert sustained a spinal cord injury in the attack that killed 22 people in 2017, while his daughter suffered severe brain damage.

Today, another incident was reported at Lowdham Grange Prison.

Geoff Willetts,, the NEC rep for the Midlands of the POA, said it demanded a response from the Specialist National Tactical Response Unit. 

He said: “There seems to be an increasing need for this group to be deployed due to frequent callouts to address rising prison violence and an ever increasing prison population, which brings its own demands and pressures on recruitment, retention and the training of staff, all of which is paramount to delivering a safe regime.

“All prison officers need to be issued with effective PPE, including stab vests.

“We need to end overcrowding and understaffing, and we need the support of management to enforce a prison regime that is safe for all who work in it and the prisoners we look after." 

Prisons and Probation Minister James Timpson said: “Prison staff rapidly resolved this incident, and I would like to pay tribute to them for doing so.

“We are building 14,000 new prison places and we will reform sentencing.”