The violent reality of 'Hellmarsh' - Britain's most secure prison - where Southport killer threw boiling water over guard and inmates have attacked more than 100 staff in a year

Daily Mail​

14-05-2025

Southport killer Axel Rudakubana 's attack on a prison officer at HMP Belmarsh is far from the first violent incident behind its walls.
Considered Britain's most secure prison, the Category A institution in south-east London is known for holding extremely high risk offenders, including terrorists who pose a threat to national security.
Rudakubana, who is serving 52 years for three murders and ten attempted murders at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class, ambushed the officer with hot water last Thursday, prompting him to be briefly admitted to hospital.
While the attack is understood to have happened on a healthcare wing, the 18-year-old was reportedly being held in the same segregation unit that Manchester Arena terrorist Hashem Abedi was sent to after assaulting guards at HMP Frankland in April.
Belmarsh, dubbed 'Hellmarsh', saw 103 assaults against staff in the year up to June 2024 - the date of the last official inspection. Out of these, 11 were recorded as serious.
While Rudakubana is not Muslim, the prison is known for its high population of Islamist terrorists who - having been prevented from preying on ordinary members of the public - are known to target officers for attacks.
Abedi, 29, who helped his 22-year-old brother Salman murder 22 innocent people at an Ariana Grande concert in 2017, has himself previously attacked guards at Belmarsh.
The terrorist joined with two other inmates to rush at two officers shortly after he was jailed in August 2020 before punching and kicking them 'like a pack of animals'.
Another Belmarsh prisoner, 38-year-old Aklakar Rahman, repeatedly attacked staff at Belmarsh and another prison in Kent and wanted to become the first inmate to kill a prison officer, his trial heard.
Rahman, who was serving a sentence for attempted murder, viewed the guards as 'kuffar,' a derogatory term for non-Muslims, and tried to kill prison officers Elizabeth Franklin, John Clark and Robert Salter using a self-made plastic weapon in 2022.
The 'extremely dangerous' prisoner, who has schizophrenia, was handed an indeterminate hospital order earlier this year.
Belmarsh housed 694 inmates as of March 2025, 72 per cent of them British and the rest foreign nationals, of which the most numerous are Albanians - numbering 21 in total.
While around 60 per cent are on remand, others are high risk sentenced inmates, the worst of whom are housed within the site's 48-man High Security Unit (HSU), dubbed 'a prison within a prison'.
Belmarsh was first opened in 1991, becoming the first adult male prison established in London since Wormwood Scrubs in 1874.
While Charlie Taylor, HM Chief Inspector of Prisons, recently described it as 'well led' and relatively safe compared to similar jails, it is said to have a problem with Islamist gangs.
Last month, one former inmate at Belmarsh told how these groups frequently targeted young members of London 's postcode gangs for radicalisation.
'The terrorist prisoners were the ones that everyone wanted to congregate around,' he told the Telegraph.
'A lot of people will look up to them, they look at them as a second prophet, as a god. In Belmarsh, they put them in with normal prisoners – guys convicted of drug offences, GBH, alongside a terrorist. This is where the issue stems from.
'A new guy comes in, and over the space of six months or a year, they've befriended him – these guys turn from convicted criminals into extremists.'
Sudesh Amman, who stabbed two people in Streatham in 2020, is believed to have been one of these young criminals groomed into becoming a terrorist.
This is according to another former inmate, who told prison campaigner David Shipley: 'They saw he wasn't the brightest, and was looking for purpose.'
In the latest official inspection, 52 per cent of Muslim prisoners said they had been restrained by officers, compared with 26 per cent of non-Muslims.
Belmarsh is also home to Daniel Khalife, the former British soldier convicted of spying for Iran, David Amess ' killer Ali Harbi Ali and neo-Nazi bomber David Copeland.
Kyle Clifford, who was handed a whole life order in March for murdering his ex-girlfriend, Louise Hunt, her sister Hannah and their mother, Carol, was held in Belmarsh while on trial at the Old Bailey - as is common.
Other Belmarsh inmates include serial rapist and burglar Delroy Grant, former television presenter Paul Ballard - who was convicted of rape and death by dangerous driving - and devil-worshiping murderer Danyal Hussein, who killed sisters Bibaa Henry and Nicole Smallman.
Belmarsh, in south-east London, is a top security prison that houses many of Britain's most dangerous killers, sex offenders and terrorists
Louis De Zoysa, who shot dead an on-duty police sergeant at Croydon police station in 2020, Reading terror attacker Khairi Saadallah and Grindr killer Stephen Port are also believed to be housed in Belmarsh.
At the time of its last inspection, the prison was described as having a restrictive regime where some inmates had as little as 90 minutes a day out of their cells, while a third remained locked up during working hours.
A survey found 38 per cent of inmates said it was easy to get illicit drugs, while more than one in five could get alcohol and 36 per cent found it easy to get medication that had not been prescribed to them.
For those on the high security wing, a quarter said they were more likely to reoffend because of their prison stay, while 58 per cent said it made no difference.
The inspection report added that the main segregation unit and segregation cells in the high security unit were dirty and the showers unsanitary, while many rooms did not even have bedding, clothing and chairs.
The grounds of the prison were strewn with litter, while the food preparation areas were deemed unhygienic.
The report concluded: 'Belmarsh is a competent prison that manages several significant operational challenges.'
Major concerns have been raised about the security regime at Belmarsh following Rudakubana's attack.
Shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick described the incident as 'the third astonishing security failure at a top security prison'.
He was referring to Hashem Abedi throwing boiling oil over three guards and then stabbing them inside a segregation unit at HMP Frankland in County Durham.
Meanwhile, convicted murderer John Mansfield was killed last month inside HMP Whitemoor, Cambridgeshire.
Sources told MailOnline he died after being hit in the head by a weight inside a gym.