CHILD killer Ian Huntley lay in a pool of blood after having his head “split in two” by a fellow lag this week – leaving him fighting for his life.
Prisoner on prisoner attacks in Britain’s jails are on the rise – with a top lawyer telling The Sun how inmates are “jumping at the chance” to target high profile cons to enhance their reputation inside.
Solicitor Marcus Johnstone has had dealings across most of the UK’s lock-ups, including the Category A Monster Mansions, Frankland and Wakefield.
He has brushed shoulders with notorious lags like serial killer Harold Shipman, and represented Charles Bronson during his career.
He’s even survived a hair-raising close call of his own when a prisoner tried to attack his client and they had to be locked down together for two hours.
According to the latest figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS), in the 12 months to September 2025, the rate of serious prisoner-on-prisoner assaults was up 12% to 31 per 1,000 – or 2,652 incidents.
In the 12 months between April 2003 and March 2004 – soon after Huntley first went to prison – there were 123 prisoner on prisoner assaults per 1,000 lags – compared to 237 in the latest year period.
Figures for total prisoner-on-prisoner assaults peaked in 2018/2019 with 277 per 1,000 inmates – and then fell during the pandemic – but have climbed every year since 2020/21, according to official data.
It comes as a final sentence was issued this week after a group of prisoners seized control of a wing at maximum security prison HMP Whitemoor – with all seeing their prison terms extended.
Mr Johnstone, MD of PCD Solicitors, went on to say he is “not remotely surprised” Soham double killer Huntley was targeted at Frankland prison – which comes months after Lostprophets paedo Ian Watkins was killed at Wakefield in October last year.
He explained: “Having worked with prisoners convicted of very serious offences for over 20 years, I have seen the ways prisons work and just how vulnerable these inmates are to attacks from fellow offenders.”
Mr Johnstone, who specialises in sex offence cases, said even the paedos on the beast wings – for the most at risk lags – would have despised former school caretaker Huntley, who murdered 10-year-old pals Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman in 2002.
“Even sex offenders have boundaries they would not cross,” he said.
Mr Johnstone said of his attacker: “No doubt he’ll have praise and hi-fives from everyone on his wing – and will be elevated amongst his peers and get a lot of credit.
“He will be respected more by the rest of the prison population because all of those prisoners will have to come out against a child killer.
“They’ll fear him too. This guy’s a bit of a lunatic, we better not mess with him, type thing.”
He added that there may even be some level of competition amongst lags to go for the most high profile inmate – particularly the “lowest of the low” like Huntley.
“There’s a lot of mental illness in prison, you can’t think through logically how someone inside might think – they could have a disturbed mindset when they’re locked up everyday,” Mr Johnstone said.
“It might well be the case the prisoner responsible could be in a cell with others or talking to others on the wing, leading to some level of planning or competition.”
Huntley has been held in several specialised, high-security and segregated wings during his time in prison – having been sentenced to a minimum of 40 years.
And such was the fear he would be targeted by other prisoners, it was reported how in 2004 while at Belmarsh, prison bosses had encouraged well-behaved lags to befriend him for his own protection.
However, including Thursday’s assault, Huntley has been the victim of at least four serious beatings, with all but one taking place at Frankland.
In 2018, a violent con tried to slit his throat – and eight years earlier his throat was also slashed leaving a seven-inch wound.
In 2005, while on the healthcare wing at Wakefield, boiling water was thrown over him, resulting in significant scolding injuries.
Mr Johnstone said: “Movement around the prison, even attending for visits – legal and domestic, can place such a prisoner at an increased risk of attack.”
The lawyer said: “A great many violent offenders I have spoken to would jump at the opportunity to attack a man like Huntley.
“This enhances their reputation in the prison estate.”
Mr Johnstone said despite the level of supervision and isolation such lags are afforded, there is “very little that can be done to keep them completely safe”.
He added: “There will always be some opportunity for another inmate or gang to get access to them… such an attack becomes inevitable…”
He claimed the “decline in quality” in the prison staff population and resources available to them over the years means keeping control over inmates has allegedly become more difficult.
“Many of these prisoners spend their whole time inside looking over their shoulder, just waiting for the moment they will be attacked,” Mr Johnstone added.
Mr Johnstone went on to allege such an increase in attacks highlights the “deterioration” currently going on within the British prison estate.
“It’s gone on for a long time. It is getting worse – the training, the lack of morale, prisoners being locked up for longer,” he claimed.
“What we need is more and more highly trained guards to deal with this ever-increasing volatility – we’re actually getting the more knowledgeable guards leaving because they’ve had enough, and you’ve got young kids replacing them.
“I still go to prisons and see people, and I sometimes sit there scratching my head thinking what are these people doing here?
“They just look like they’ve got virtually no clue of what they’re doing.
“They’re all really young, sat there on their phones, they’ve got no interest in looking after prisoners.
“It’s not a vocation, it’s just a job, and if they’re not on much more than minimum wage, they’ve got very little interest in looking after the inmates.
“That, in turn, just leads to inmates having no hope, there’s nothing for them to do and it causes problems and disruptions.”
The Sun has approached the Ministry of Justice for comment.
Ian Huntley
Anthony Russell, 43, is suspected of battering Ian Huntley on Thursday at a recycling workshop on Frankland’s A-wing using a makeshift weapon.
A woman visiting a lag at the jail said of the Soham monster: “He’s in a bad, bad way. I shouldn’t say it, but it’s what he deserves.”
Triple killer Russell – who also raped a pregnant woman – is said to have had a brief argument with Huntley before launching into the assault.
The pair had apparently argued when their cells were close to each other, before Russell was moved.
A source said: “Huntley was hated at Frankland — so an attack like this was only a matter of time.
“If it had not been Anthony Russell, it would have been someone else. But people are still amazed that Russell was able to get to him and do this.
“Huntley would have three or four officers with him most of the time because he was such a target.
“It was no secret that loads of inmates wanted to get to him and that is why he was guarded so closely.”
Ian Watkins
Paedo Lostprophets star Ian Watkins, 48, was stabbed in the neck at Wakefield on October 11 – and he died at the scene.
He was serving a 29-year sentence for child sex offences.
Rashid Gedel, 25, and Samuel Dodsworth, 43, have both been charged with murder.
A provisional trial estimated to last between two and three weeks has been set for May 5.
The inquest opened a couple of weeks after Watkins’ death was adjourned “pending the outcome of the criminal justice process”.
Watkins was locked up in December 2013 after admitting a string of twisted child sex offences.
Urfan Sharif
The killer dad of 10-year-old Sara Sharif had his throat slashed in prison with the jagged lid of a tuna tin at HMP Belmarsh on New Year’s Day last year.
Attacked just weeks into his life sentence for murdering innocent Sara, Omar Sharif was lucky to survive, sources said at the time.
Two inmates, sickened by his abuse of daughter Sara, ambushed the evil dad and attacked him, it is claimed.
Sara was beaten, burned and bitten over two years before her death in August 2023.
A source said: “The guards tried to keep him safe because he obviously had a target on his back after the case was such big news.
“Something like this was always on the cards, and an attack was probably only a matter of time.
“Sharif has tried to keep his head down since coming into the jail, but word quickly got round about who he was.
“Inmates were not happy he is in there with them and, although the other prisoners are in for heinous crimes, a lot of them don’t like people who attack children.
“A lot of them are saying how it couldn’t have happened to a more deserving guy.”
He was subsequently moved to Frankland, reportedly leaving him “terrified”.
Lags like Ian Huntley are ‘marked’ – and prisons are in ‘absolute chaos’, says crime expert
INMATES like Soham murderer Ian Huntley are “marked” as targets by other lags as soon as they arrive – and due to an alleged lack of funding prisons are in “absolute chaos” across the UK, according to a top crime expert.
Geoffrey Wansell, veteran journalist, author and podcaster, has told The Sun child killer Huntley – who was left fighting for his life after an attack by another lag – is considered the lowest of the low and fair game inside.
He said: “A high profiled prisoner, particularly anyone who kills children, or is associated with paedophilia, they are an absolute high ranking target in prison.
“They become public enemy number one.”
Mr Wansell added: “In the past 15 years, there have been relentless attacks on high profile prisoners, particularly those associated with attacks on children.
“They are subjected repeatedly to horrifying attacks – it could be boiling water, it could be nowadays water with sugar in it, because it can’t get off the skin quickly; they can be hit over the head, they can be held hostage.”
He continued: “That’s all because the prison estate has been allowed to run down – not just this government, but for years by successive governments.
“One MP once put it to me vividly, he said there’s not a single vote in prisons.
“So there’s no leverage to say we should spend money on prisons.
“Which is why we’ve got new staff, high churn rate, quick turnover… so you have got prisons in crisis – there’s no two ways about it.”
He said prisoner governors have told him “time after time we’re struggling, we’re finding it literally impossible to do the job we’re being asked to do”.
Mr Wansell explained that most lags want to be moved to lower category lock-ups or even psychiatric facilities like Broadmoor because the likes of Frankland and Wakefield have been “really pushed to the absolute limit” and it filters down to impact the prisoners’ lives and put them at risk.
“What we think is chuck them in jail and throw away the key,” said Mr Wansell.
“That is not enough. I’ve argued long and consistently that we should separate out the most violent offenders and put them in an entirely different, what the Americans would call a supermax prison, which is very specifically designed to deal with people who have offended the community in every way, offended moral goodness in every sense.
“But we don’t, we put them in Frankland or Wakefield, along with huge numbers of other prisoners.”
Mr Wansell went on to say, like people on the outside, prisoners are also “fascinated by true crime”, so will be well aware of lags like Ian Huntley or Ian Watkins, who was killed in a prisoner-on-prisoner attack at Wakefield in October last year.
“Prisoners take a huge interest in sentencing procedures – who gets what, how many years?
“That attracts enormous amounts of attention.”
He agreed that many lags will target such high profile inmates for the reputation, “they are genuinely offended by someone like Huntley”.
“Speaking to ex-prisoners, they say we can’t understand how someone could do that to two innocent girls,” he said.
“Prisoners have the feelings of right and wrong, just like the man on the street.”
He added: “Huntley, by his very actions, set himself apart from what you might call moral decency.”
Mr Wansell said, even worse, Huntley he suspects “is rather proud of being Ian Huntley”.
“That would’ve offended groups within the prison.
“He would’ve tried, I would presume, to keep his head down but not necessarily prepared to keep it down so far.”
The Sun has approached the Ministry of Justice for comment.
