A prisoner has been stabbed to death at HMP Wormwood Scrubs, prison and police sources have confirmed.
Police were called to the west London jail at 3.19pm on Wednesday in response to reports of a male prisoner with stab injuries. He was later pronounced dead at the scene, despite the efforts of paramedics to save him.
The fatal stabbing follows a recent decision to draft extra patrol dogs, body-worn cameras and CCTV into Wormwood Scrubs because of the high levels of serious violence, with more than 90 attacks on staff over the space of six months.
The Metropolitan police said that the homicide and major crime command was supporting local officers, no arrests had been made and inquiries were ongoing. Next of kin have been informed and a postmortem will be held in due course.
The potential homicide follows three murders inside jails in England and Wales in 2017 as violence inside prisons reaches levels not seen for 25 years.
It also follows the decision by the chief inspector of prisons two weeks ago to issue the first ever “urgent notification” notice demanding the justice secretary, David Gauke, intervene at Nottingham prison which inspectors had found to be “fundamentally unsafe”.
