IF MINISTERS won’t act on Britain’s prison meltdown the union will, the Prison Officers Association (POA) declared yesterday.

General secretary Steve Gillan said he was not prepared to let his members “get their heads kicked in every day” amid spiralling prison violence, throwing down the gauntlet to ministers over their chaotic mismanagement of the penal system.

Prison service employees, along with the police and armed forces, are banned from taking industrial action.