A convict found with an ISIS flag in a British jail was plotting a violent breakout and the kidnap of a prison officer.
The discovery raises the nightmare of ISIS-inspired inmates thinking about beheading a captive warder.
The prisoner, believed to have been radicalised inside, had drawn up a plan to break out of Parkhurst on the Isle of Wight.
But the attempt was thwarted when officers raided his cell following a tip-off from another inmate.
As well as a detailed escape plan which is believed to have involved taking a member of staff hostage, a homemade ISIS flag was also found in the cell, giving rise to suspicion the inmate is a terrorist sympathiser.
Security services and anti-terror police were alerted to the plot, which may have involved other lags.
A Ministry of Justice spokesman told the Sunday People: “Vigilant staff found a very basic description of the inside of the prison during a cell search. This clearly demonstrates the effectiveness of our robust security measures.”
The inmate will be held in isolation while prison bosses launch an urgent probe. One fear is that he planned to execute a prison officer, possibly by beheading, following the example of the horrific “Jihadi John” videos.
A source said: “For many years we have feared a kidnap plot involving radicalised Muslim convicts.
“Following a tip-off prison officers raided a cell and found items that were extremely worrying.
“There were very detailed handwritten plans about how to escape from the jail and a black home-made Isis flag – which suggests an Islamist Jihadi link.
“The evidence indicates the plot was very advanced.”
Intelligence gathered from Britain’s eight top-security prisons indicate that specific threats to kidnap and behead an officer emerged in 2008.
That year the authorities drew up a plan to deal with a kidnap plot involving religious militants.
There have since been credible plots at high-security Whitemoor Prison, near March, Cambridgeshire, and HM Prison Frankland, Co Durham.
This latest terror plot does not follow the same trend of involving high-security prisons.
The suspected plotter at Category B Parkhurst was not known to security services and is understood to have converted to Islam only recently.
The source added: “Previously, it was believed the main threat to prison officers came at high-security jails.
“They hold a lot of terrorists and staff were aware of the threat of kidnapping and possible execution.
“Now it appears the threat is more widespread and all prison officers are vulnerable. In this case the plot appears to be an escape bid.”
By Nick Dorman: Mirror Online
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