10 Shocking Prison Crimes

10 Shocking Prison Crimes

Caitlin Johnson

Welcome to WatchMojoUK, and in this unranked list we’re looking at heinous crimes committed by and against some of Britain’s most repugnant offenders while in prison.

Peter Sutcliffe

The Yorkshire Ripper eventually died from diabetes complications in 2020, but his fellow prisoners made various attempts on his life during his decades inside. He was finally arrested for his crimes in 1981, getting sent to Parkhurst that summer, where just two years later he was attacked for the first time. He was left with deep wounds after being hit with a broken coffee jar. He was then sent to Broadmoor where, in the 90s, was attacked with a headphone wire, and then again the next year with a pen, and then AGAIN a decade on with a kitchen knife. Of course, you’d be hard pressed to find anybody in the world who feels sorry for him, after he murdered at least thirteen women.

Martin Bates

HMP Wakefield is one of the most notorious prisons in Britain, nicknamed “Monster Mansion” because of the number of extremely dangerous offenders held there. One prisoner, Martin Bates, serving life for murder, allegedly attacked a guard in early 2025 with a disposable razor. The guard required over thirty stitches to repair serious facial wounds, though it’s still only alleged that Martin Bates was the culprit. The Prison Officers Association, the UK’s trade union for POs, used the incident to draw attention to how common safety razors still are in prisons. They want the transition to safer, electric razors to speed up so that crimes like this can’t be committed in prisons anymore.

Mitchell Harrison

In 2012, Mitchell Harrison was killed with improvised weapons at Frankland Prison in Durham. Harrison was in prison for serious offences against a minor, but the killers, Micahel Parr and Nathan Mann, may have been equally depraved. They eventually pleaded guilty, but in court, their, quote, “fantasies” about committing violent crimes against other prisoners were brought to light. We can’t go into detail about exactly what they did because it’s far too gruesome for YouTube, but allegedly, Harrison had been bragging that same day about his crimes. Durham Police, however, described him as a “model prisoner”.

Aklakar Rahman

In 2025, Aklakar Rahman confessed to being behind a spate of attacks on prison officials in both HMP Swaleside and HMP Belmarsh back in 2022. It took that long to put him on trial for the attacks, but he only pleaded guilty to charges of attempted wounding and attempted assault, while maintaining he isn’t guilty of attempted murder because he didn’t intend to end anybody’s life. Apparently, Rahman’s violent nature was well known in the prison, and he talked often about his disdain for prison workers, motivating him to commit these crimes. At the end of the trial, he was found guilty, though he was already serving a life sentence for other prison attacks.

Colin Hatch

In 2011 at HMP Full Sutton, near York, notorious offender Colin Hatch was found dead in his cell. Despite Full Sutton being a maximum security prison, this was still able to happen, with another prisoner soon arrested on suspicion of murder. That prisoner was Damien Fowkes, a bank robber who seemed to make a habit of nonce bashing and had attacked Ian Huntley, the perpetrator of the Soham murders, in 2010. Hatch was deemed a public menace and offended repeatedly after multiple prison stints, and was unlikely to ever be released. Fowkes was handed another life sentence for Hatch’s murder.

Richard Huckle

Also at Full Sutton, in 2019, prolific sex offender Richard Huckle, who committed countless crimes against minors in Malaysia, was attacked by fellow inmate Paul Fitzgerald, dying of his injuries. Fitzgerald was already on prison officials’ radar because he repeatedly expressed his desire to cause harm to other prisoners. Fitzgerald assaulted Huckle himself before the deed was done, and had already been diagnosed as a psychopath. He got another 34 years in prison, but there was a serious inquiry in the aftermath and why Fitzgerald’s additional crime hadn’t been prevented. People around him were aware that he was planning something like this, but nobody intervened. Fitzgerald laughed when he was sentenced.

Jack Rowley

Another improvised weapon incident, in 2020, repeat offender Jack Rowley turned up in court yet again to explain why he’d attacked some prison officers. He said that they were belittling him after asking him to move to a different area of the prison, again at HMP Full Sutton. He got into it with guards and then threw boiling water over one of them, then pulled a plastic knife. He was very quickly arrested, but was already serving a life sentence for burning down a house in West Yorkshire. In court, he was given an additional five year sentence for the offence.

Execution at HMP Woodhill

In this chilling incident, three prisoners teamed up to execute another inmate at HMP Woodhill. The victim was Taras Nykolyn, who was convicted in 2016 of also murdering someone in prison, during his time in Wandsworth. He was already in prison for a different murder at the time. In 2018, he died in the plot, which is believed to have been pre-meditated by the trio responsible. However, later investigations found that, unlike in the case of Paul Fitzgerald we just discussed, there were no warnings to prison staff that an attack was being planned – even though it clearly was. The killers said they targeted Nykolyn because he was, quote, “foreign”.

Hashem Abedi

The younger brother of the Manchester arena bomber was himself arrested and charged with murder and other offences in 2019, getting sentenced to life imprisonment on 22 different counts for helping build the explosive device. He ended up in Frankland where he planned an attack on prison officers using boiling cooking oil, which as anyone who’s been burned with oil will tell you is not pleasant. Three officers ended up hospitalised in the aftermath, and it wasn’t the first time Abedi had done something like this while in prison. Also in Frankland and just weeks later, Axel Rudakubana, the Southport killer, allegedly attacked officers by throwing boiling water through his cell door hatch at them.

“Hashem Abedi” = https://youtu.be/Z_w0jeLulEw?t=33

Ian Watkins

In October 2025, disgraced musician Ian Watkins was subjected to yet another attack behind bars, and this one ended fatally. His crimes are far too heinous for us to repeat, but if you’ve been following the news, you already know them. Due to the nature of his offences, he went into prison with a target on his back, and had already been attacked in 2023. In the aftermath of his death two years later, two men were charged with murder. His ex-girlfriend, who was instrumental in his arrest after she finally persuaded police to listen to her, said that she was only surprised it hadn’t happened sooner, and that she was relieved he wouldn’t be able to enact any revenge if he ever escaped.

Let us know in the comments what disturbing crimes we missed.