A prison officer at HMP Frankland in County Durham has told the BBC “there needs to be an urgent change in security measures” across all prisons or staff will die.

It comes after the Manchester Arena bomber Hashem Abedi threw hot oil at officers and stabbed them with makeshift weapons at the prison on Saturday. Three members of staff were seriously injured, with one remaining in hospital.

Abedi was in the separation centre where inmates are kept to prevent them from spreading extremism and toxic ideologies. The BBC understands it only has eight cells.

Prisons minister Lord Timpson, who visited HMP Frankland on Wednesday, said the government would “do everything it can to protect those working in our prisons”.

Security measures at the separation centre did allow prisoners access to kitchens, but this was suspended by the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) following the incident at HMP Frankland. Officers working in the unit are also not given stab vests.

Lord Timpson said the terms and scope of an independent review into the attack would be set out in the coming days.

The prison officer, speaking to the BBC on condition of anonymity, said: “I think stab vests would help us feel safer and I don’t get why they won’t give us those. There needs to be an urgent change in security measures or someone is going to die.”

“This attack brings it home how dangerous this job is. And it feels more dangerous now than it has before – at least in my career”, they added.

“You do this job and you see attacks all the time but this one’s got to me because it’s so serious and it was Abedi and it’s all over the media.”

Earlier this week, Mark Fairhurst, president of the Prison Officers’ Association (POA), said the union wanted officers to be equipped with stab vests, but argued that Prison Service leaders “don’t want us all looking too militaristic to the prisoners”.

The HMP Frankland officer described the mood in the prison as “downbeat and miserable”.

“Everyone’s talking about how [the attack] was unprovoked and planned by him,” they said.

The warning came as the POA told the BBC it was writing to Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer to request better security for its members.

The union’s general secretary Steve Gillan visited HMP Frankland on Tuesday.

He said: “I’ll be writing to the prime minister about the real concerns of staff in relation to appeasement of prisoners in the separation unit and the privileges afforded such as self-cooking facilities which undermines security.

“I will also be raising the issue about stab proof vests and the need for tasers in certain circumstances.”

In the 12 months to September 2024, the rate of assaults on staff reached a new peak of 120 assaults per 1,000 prisoners (10,496 assaults on staff), up 19% from the 12 months to September 2023.

Chair of the Prison Governors’ Association, Tom Wheatley, said violence in prisons “happens daily” and was “a reality of prison life”.

“It can be minimised, but it’s very difficult to absolutely prevent,” he added.

“I think the second thing to say is that the staff who were injured, the staff who were there, probably saved each other’s lives. So the way they responded, the way they reacted to the attack, probably served to, you know, prevent what was an obviously very serious attack turning into a murder.”

Abedi was moved to HMP Frankland after carrying out an earlier attack on prison officers in Belmarsh prison in 2020, for which three years and 10 months was added to his sentence.

Abedi was sentenced to a record 55-year minimum term in prison for planning and preparing the Manchester Arena attack in 2017 along with his brother, the suicide bomber Salman Abedi.

He was in Libya when the blast took place and was later extradited to the UK to face trial.

Abedi was found guilty of 22 counts of murder, attempted murder and conspiracy to cause an explosion likely to endanger life in 2020.

The Frankland separation centre is now a crime scene. It has been emptied and is the subject of an ongoing counter-terrorism investigation into the attack.

Abedi himself has been moved to London’s high-security Belmarsh prison, while the other six prisoners in have been moved to HMP Woodhill, a source told the BBC.

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer’s spokesman said it was “clear that something went terribly wrong” with how Abedi was handled.

Meanwhile, Shadow Justice Secretary Robert Jenrick described the attack as “extremely concerning”, and suggested it brought into question “the prison leadership’s ability to contain the threat from Islamist extremist inmates.”

“This deeply serious security failure must be a turning point”, he said.

Additional reporting by Anna Lamche.