I HAVE warned on these pages many times that my members, front-line prison officers, custody officers and support grades working in the most hostile environment in western Europe, are at constant risk of serious harm from a system that consistently devalues their safety and security. 

From reckless staff cuts by the last Tory government — leading to a loss of over 110,000 years of cumulative prison officer experience since 2010, and counting — to the prison service’s obsession with appeasing prisoners at all costs, POA members have long paid the price of their employer’s callous indifference to protecting its workers. 

What employment rights can be more important than the right to be safe at work? Yet new figures reveal that assaults against prison staff have soared by 13 per cent over the past year to a record high, while serious assaults are up 12 per cent. Enough is enough! 

But when my members feel in danger and withdraw to a place of safety, as they did in HMP Liverpool earlier this year, they are threatened with the sack. 

And when the POA reminds members of their rights under health and safety legislation, we are fined six-figure sums and threatened with imprisonment in the High Court because of the draconian ban on any form of industrial action. 

Last month’s horrific alleged terrorist attack on three prison officers in a separation centre at HMP Frankland must mark a turning point in the way society values and protects these critical but often hidden front-line emergency workers.

This savage attack saw officers first incapacitated with hot oil before being stabbed with an improvised weapon made from metal, leading to life-changing injuries to three POA members who are still recovering in hospital. I fear for the long-term psychological effect on all staff who were involved in this cowardly attack. 

I believe only the bravery of the officers involved prevented this convicted terrorist, the alleged brother and co-conspirator of the Manchester Arena suicide bomber, from succeeding in his murderous plan. 

The officers involved, their Frankland colleagues and the entire POA membership are grateful for the outpouring of sympathy and solidarity following this appalling incident, but a number of serious questions remain. 

Why were convicted terrorists in separation centres — which are reserved for the most dangerous prisoners of all — given access to cooking facilities that could so easily be weaponised against POA members? 

Thankfully the government immediately suspended this access across the high-security estate — but why should it take such a devastating attack for this to happen when my union has warned of the dangers for many years? 

There seems to be a will from leaders to facilitate some sort of self-cooking in the future — but why, when prisoners are provided with three meals a day and have all their dietary requirements catered for? The POA will do everything in our power to prevent any form of self-cooking ever returning to this cohort of prisoners. 

Why has the prison service resisted giving front-line officers the personal protective equipment they need to keep them safe in the high-security estate, such as tasers and stab-proof vests — which have previously been denied on the ludicrous grounds they look too “militaristic” and “intimidating”? 

Again, thankfully, the government has announced a rapid review into stab-proof vests and a pilot project on tasers. Both these items of vital PPE need to be rolled out as quickly as possible to prevent any more attacks like we saw at Frankland. 

Although we haven’t always seen eye to eye, it is to their credit that Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood and Prisons Minister Lord Timpson have engaged in good faith with the POA over the safety of members since this attack, meeting myself and general secretary Steve Gillan at the end of last month to discuss what urgent action needs to be taken. 

And it is an immense relief they have finally come to the conclusion reached privately by the last government that officers in the youth custody estate — the most violent and dangerous prisons in the country — urgently need better PPE to protect both themselves and the people in their care. 

I welcome their announcement that Pava pepper spray, already available to officers in the closed adult male estate, will now be extended to the youth estate — a key POA demand for many years. 

But I am disgusted that some organisations — most notably the Howard League for Penal Reform — are not only opposed to this decision but are actually fundraising for a legal challenge against it. 

It is scandalous that this once-respected institution has debased itself in this way, but by campaigning to put my members’ lives — and those of the young offenders they claim to care about — at greater risk, the Howard League should quite simply be stripped of its charitable status.

To all those who oppose the rollout of Pava in our youth prisons, I simply ask how you would disarm a violent 15-year-old advancing towards you — while you are alone — armed with two home-made knives threatening to slash your throat?  

And let us not forget that the perpetrator of the Southport atrocities was a “child.” Prison officers have human rights as well, and we call on the entire trade union movement to support our right to safety and proper protection at work.

Mark Fairhurst is the national chair of the POA.