Two charged for terror offences over HMP Whitemoor attack "wore fake suicide vests"

Two inmates at a maximum security jail have appeared in court accused of orchestrating a violent knife attack on a prison officer while wearing fake suicide vests.

Brusthom Ziamani, 24, and Baz Macaulay Hockton, 26, are charged with attempted murder over the incident at HMP Whitemoor in Cambridgeshire on 9 January.

Westminster Magistrates' Court heard that the pair managed to isolate the officer, Neil Trundle by asking him to bring them a spoon in a segregation area of the prison.

They then knocked him to the ground and repeatedly assaulted him. The victim suffered stab wounds to his head, chest and face during the attack.

Two female officers, Georgina Ibbotson and Jayne Cowles, were punched in the face by Ziamani as they tried to help the victim, the court heard.

When they were restrained, the defendants were found to have three improvised prison shanks, including a piece of sharpened plastic and two pieces of metal with handles made out of cloth, it was claimed.

They were also both wearing fake suicide belts, the court was told.

Ziamani has also been charged with actual bodily harm and common assault in relation to the two female prison officers.

The incident was investigated by the Metropolitan Police's Counter Terror Command.

It is believed to be the first suspected terror attack of its kind to be launched inside a jail, although a home-made IRA bomb was exploded inside Crumlin Road Prison in Belfast in 1991.

Ziamani, previously described in court as a follower of radical preacher Anjem Choudary, was found guilty of planning a terror attack in 2015 over a plot to behead a British soldier when he was just 19-years-old.

During his trial, the court was told that he had researched the location of Army cadet bases in the south-east of the capital.

Hockton is said to have been jailed for a violent offence.