This weekend, armed assailants tortured a prisoner and held him hostage in HMP Wakefield for six hours, before specialist prison staff stormed the cell. The prisoner was taken to hospital with stab wounds. Much has been made of the fact that he is Ian Watkins, the front man of the group Lostprophets, who was imprisoned for 29 years in 2008 for the sexual abuse of children. As you can imagine, there isn’t a lot of sympathy for one of the most grotesque and sadistic paedophiles in our prison system. But this misses an important and troubling point.
Wakefield prison is one of a small number of high security prisons. It was recently classified as ‘outstanding’ in HM Prison and Probation Service annual performance ratings. It was also well regarded by the independent prisons inspectorate. So if a hostage incident can take place here with such a high profile prisoner, it’s fair to say that it could take place anywhere.
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