A prisoner has died and two others have been critically injured in a stabbing at HMP Pentonville in London.
The inmate, in his 20s, died at the prison shortly after the attack, while the injured pair, aged 21 and 30, were taken to hospital with knife wounds.
A 34-year-old man was arrested following the stabbing at 15:30 BST.
The Prison Governors Association renewed calls for a public inquiry amid what it said was an “unprecedented” rise in prison violence and suicides.
The Met said formal identification of the dead man had not taken place, adding that a post-mortem examination would be arranged in due course.
‘Very dark place’
At its annual conference in Derby last week, the Prison Governors Association said safety standards in prisons had declined since the introduction of “benchmarking” – a programme to drive down costs by reducing staffing and simplifying the prison regime.
Responding to the Pentonville stabbing, a spokesman for the association said: “Our members, uniformed staff and prisoners are working and living in squalid and brutal conditions which should not be tolerated in a country that is one of the richest in the Western world.
“If a society is judged by how it treats those it locks up, then we are in a very dark place.”
The Ministry of Justice last week said it was “fully committed to addressing the significant increase in violence, self-harm and self-inflicted deaths in our prisons” and Justice Secretary Elizabeth Truss promised an extra £14m to recruit more prison officers.
A Prison Service spokesman said: “Police are investigating an incident at HMP Pentonville.
“It would be inappropriate to comment further at this stage.”
No prison officers are understood to have been injured in the incident, the Prison Officers Association said. (bbcnews)