An inquiry into the way prisons deal with convicted terrorists is being launched by the independent terror watchdog amid concerns of growing radicalisation behind bars.

Jonathan Hall QC said there had been a “steady drumbeat” of terror attacks on prison officers while other inmates were coming under the influence of “high status” terrorist prisoners.

Mr Hall, the Government’s independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, said that if terrorist activity was taking place in jails then it had to be dealt with.

“There has been a steady drumbeat over recent years of terrorist attacks against prison officers, and an increasing number of individuals who may well have formed their terrorist intent in prison under the influence of high status terrorist prisoners,” he told The Times.

“If terrorism exists (in prison) then it ought to be dealt with. We need scrutiny of how prisons operate to either contain, or worse encourage, terrorism.”

His comments follow a series of high-profile cases, including the 2019 London Bridge attack when Usman Khan, a terrorist prisoner out on licence, stabbed two people to death.

Khairi Saadallah, who was given a whole life sentence earlier this month for murdering three men in a terror attack in a Reading park, had been befriended by a radical preacher while serving an earlier prison term.

Last year Brusthom Ziamani, who was serving a 19-year sentence for plotting to behead a soldier, was convicted of attempted murder for trying to hack an officer to death in the maximum security Whitemoor jail.

Mr Hall said that he had been amazed at the way terrorist prisoners were looked up to by other inmates.

“I find it astonishing that someone should go to prison for plotting a terrorist atrocity and the concern is not that they themselves are at risk of attack, like a paedophile is often at risk of attack because prisoners generally say what they’ve done is terrible,” he said.

“Terrorists automatically achieve a sort of status.”

A Ministry of Justice spokesman told The Times that they had trained more than 29,000 prison officers to better spot signs of extremism, increased the number of specialist counter-terrorism staff, and would separate the most subversive prisoners where necessary.

“Our tough measures to stop extremists spreading their poisonous ideologies in prison have been stepped up,” the spokesman said.

“We ended the automatic early release of terrorists and our new legislation means they will also face tougher sentences and monitoring on release.”

Read more: Serving inmates convicted of terrorist murder plot against prison officer

Enquiry into the Direction of the Campaign Needs to be Undertaken by the Conservatives

It took Jeremy Corbyn some time to ensure that he set out an Inquiry into Antisemitism which will be headed up by Shami Chakraborty. The Inquiry is needed given the charges of antisemitism that should be looked into and given the fact that the Labour Party has a proud history of tackling racism. (For those who believe that antisemitism is not racism, let us put this bizarre argument to bed, it is racism and legally seen as such).

But there are questions to be asked of the campaign of Zac Goldsmith and let us not forget that towards the end of the campaign, the theme consistently put out was the link between extremism and Sadiq Khan. Some within the Conservative Party must have known that this would be read negatively within Muslim communities at a time when many Muslims are tired of their communities being framed solely through the lens of extremism. This was also expressly stated by Baroness Warsi in tweets that she put out.

These impacts would therefore have been known, but someone in the campaign made the decision to run on the extremism narrative and to push it through repetitively. Who was that individual or individuals is the question to be asked? How could this have been the main theme of Zac Goldsmith’s campaign is another question to be asked? Who authorised the campaign and who agreed to it? These are legitimate questions to be asked.

If we are to have a London united, then the public also need answers to these questions. In fact, over 1 million Londoners voted for Sadiq Khan. At the very least 1 million people would surely like an answer to these questions. We hope that the Conservative Party does show transparency and order an Inquiry into what went so disastrously wrong with the campaign that they had to resort to the lowest common denominator – innuendos about how the Labour candidate met someone over 10 years ago who was extreme and by default must have tendencies towards extremists. This is the narrative that was weaved and it was a toxic narrative. It is a narrative that has been soundly rejected by Londoners. However, now the questions must be asked about the Conservative campaign.

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