UK’s hardest jail horrors – skin-stripping cocktail assaults to ISIS plots

One of the UK’s most infamous prisons is a cesspit of violent attacks, with hundreds of skin-crawling incidents taking place.

HMP Belmarsh has housed some of the most notorious criminals — from rapist copper David Carrick to kiddy killer Ian Huntley. It is also where WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is being held while the US considers ending the editor’s extradition.

The facility, located in Thamesmead, south London, is a Category A prison. This means inmates, if they manage to escape, would pose “the most threat to the public, police, or national security”. Despite the all-male prison’s high security, strict protocols, and lack of time outside the cell, redacted logs have revealed the constant threats and assaults that have occured.

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According to a Freedom of Information request released by the Ministry of Justice (MoJ), there were more than 280 assaults at Belmarsh in 2023 alone.

In a log obtained by the Metro, one prison orderly was the victim of “jugging” last April, after an inmate lobbed a scalding cocktail of boiling water, oil and Vaseline at his face. “[Redacted’s] forehead has peeled off due to the burns,” the report reads.

It’s alleged the anonymous culprit, who was relocated to another part of the prison, carried out the heinous attack after the employee gave him a “dirty food box” which took as a sign of “disrespect”. But that’s not the only gruesome story to have surfaced from the lock-up.

Inmates reportedly crafted a knife-like weapon by melting a piece of tin onto a toothbrush handle, with one prisoner leaving a fellow criminal with a face full of cuts. Meanwhile, a shower brawl broke out as one inmate tried bludgeoning a man using a tin of tuna stuffed into a sock. According to the Mirror, both were retrained by officers.

The log also reveals that one prisoner attempted to strangle his cellmate using a bedsheet. The victim’s skin had reportedly turned a blue-grey colour and officers had to intervene. It is not known what state the victim was in after the ambush.

In 2022, the brother of Manchester bomber, Hashem Abedi, who is serving a life sentence for 22 murders, and two other convicted terrorists, were found guilty of a “vicious” attack against a prison officer. It re-sparked concern that extremists in the jail have been engaging in “jihad banter” and using their confinement to discuss terrorist ideas.

Terror offender Mohiussunnath Chowdhury, who was locked up after attacking police with a sword outside Buckingham Palace back in 2017, reportedly told undercover cops he associated with “like-minded brothers” in Belmarsh. “There’s many many radical Muslims in prison and usually that’s all they would talk about,” the ISIS supporter said.

Last year the MoJ insisted it does not accept violence in its jails. “[We] can confirm that we will never tolerate violence against our hard-working officers and assaults have fallen by more than 20% since 2019,” it added. “Our £125 million investment to improve safety in prisons has clamped down on the weapons, drugs and mobile phones that fuel crime and violence behind bars, while we have also equipped officers with PAVA spray to boost protection.”

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