Prisoners launched ‘animalistic’ attack at HMP Belmarsh

A court has heard how a prison officer thought he was going to be killed in an ‘animalistic’ attack by three prisoners in the high-security unit of HMP Belmarsh.

Hashem Abedi, 24, Ahmed Hassan, 22, and Muhammed Saeed, 23, are charged with inflicting actual bodily harm on Paul Edwards during the May 2020 incident, although the defendants deny the charges.

Edwards was the custodian manager for the jail’s High Security Unit, described as a ‘prison within a prison’, where the three defendants were held. He was attacked by the inmates as they returned from an exercise session, with several prison officers seen on CCTV running into the office, where they fought the inmates and managed to restrain them.

Edwards suffered lacerations to his head and bruising to his back and ribcage, as well as damage to his hearing.

At the time of the incident, Abedi and Hasan were serving sentences of imprisonment and Saeed was on remand awaiting trial. All three defendants were disciplined at the time and had their level of privileges downgraded to ‘basic’.

Hashem Abedi, who was born in Greater Manchester, helped his older sibling Salman plan the Manchester Arena attack that killed 22 people on 22 May 2017.

Ahmed Hassan was jailed in 2018 for the non-fatal Parsons Green Tube bombing, which took place in September 2017.