Hashem Abedi, 28, inflicted "life-threatening" injuries on the officers at HMP Frankland in County Durham on Saturday. He is being held at the jail for his role in the deadly bombings eight years ago and his latest attack has outraged many, including former prison governor Ian Acheson. Mr Acheson, who carried out a review of Islamist extremism in jails in 2016, called Abedi "the second most dangerous prisoner in the UK" and claimed he should be left in total isolation because "we don’t have the death penalty". "The only other alternative is extreme custody - if it turns him mad then so be it," he told the Times.

Former prison governor Ian Acheson said Abedi’s past showed he posed such a danger he should have been held under tighter security conditions than the ones at the separation unit. Mr Acheson also warned that the assault “moves us closer to the day when a prison officer will be murdered on duty by a terrorist”, adding that it is only a matter of time. The Justice Secretary Ms Mahmood said at the weekend: “I am appalled by the attack of three brave officers.”

"That being said, we must guard against those in senior positions who say that it is inevitable people like Abedi will fall through the net. That rather depends on the strength of net. This report sets out clear failings in the handling of intelligence that may have contributed to one of the most heinous acts of terrorism this country has ever endured. These failures aren’t new, they are part of a dispiriting trend that needs urgent and decisive attention, not window-dressing and bromides about ‘lessons learned’."

CEP Strategic Advisor Liam Duffy: "It’s a question both implicit and explicit in much of the coverage since the night of 22nd May 2017. It’s a question explored by Sir John Saunders in his Manchester Arena bombing inquiry, published yesterday. The conventional answer is that suicide bomber, Salman Abedi, was radicalised. But what if he wasn’t radicalised – at least not in the way we understand?"

CEP Senior Advisor Ian Acheson writes: "For me, as a counter-extremism expert and former prison governor, with long experience of serious-incident command, it made depressing reading. I once coined the phrase ‘institutional timidity’ to describe the risk-averse, buck-passing paralysis that can seize some public organisations. In hiding behind bureaucracy, hierarchy, rules and ideology, they lose their sense of purpose."