Amanda Akass of Sky News chats with a prison guard who was attacked at work and sustained severe injuries.
Martin Geddes believed he was going to die when he was ambushed by a prisoner who took his baton and struck him in the head.
“He grabbed me, pulled me into the cell, gave me a sucker punch, and took my baton.” That concludes my memory. When I returned with the cell full of cops, my companion thought I had slit my throat due to the amount of blood on my hands.
“I suffered a ten inch laceration to the back of my head requiring ten staples, and multiple other baton injuries to my head and body.” His assailant was found guilty and given an order to stay in a hospital for eternity.
Martin claims that his mental health has been severely impacted by his excruciating headaches, which he has been experiencing for three years.
Before I started treatment, I had flashbacks for at least a year.
“I was having 40 or 50 flashbacks a day of the final picture I had of the prisoner with my baton raised above my head. I was considering suicide. I would have committed suicide if my partner Alison hadn’t intervened. I was unable to handle it.
“Although I enjoyed my work there, I would never return. I had to step down from my position. I simply no longer feel secure on the landing.”
Attacks on prison staff members are becoming more frequent in both public and private prisons. It will soon surpass the record numbers from the years right before the pandemic in 2018–19 if it continues at its current rate.
According to the most recent government statistics, which were made public in January, there were 8,516 assaults against prison guards in England and Wales in the 12 months that ended in September 2023. This is a 16% increase over the previous year and equates to 23 attacks per day. 765 of the attacks were deemed to be severe. At the same time, there were 785 attacks in women’s prisons, the greatest number ever.
