A rooftop protest has brought chaos to many of UK prisons this afternoon.

The protest started when members of the Prison Officers Association (POA) downed tools and assembled on the roof of Wormwood Scrubs Prison (above) in West London in the latest action for better working conditions.

Convicted murderer Sam “Chopper” Bloggs, 36, said: “This is a diabolical liberty – if you can use the term liberty in a place like this.  The guards just stopped work at 2.00pm at the end of their shift and no one replaced them.  I am living in fear. Anything could happen.”

Thirty-year-old Tom “Fingers” Thumb said: “I’m doing a ten stretch for house-breaking. How can I feel safe with all my valuables in my cell if the doors are left open and we have no guards keeping law and order. I mean, this place is full of thieves.

Home Secretary Amber Rudd told the House of Commons this afternoon that all that could be done was being done.

“All that can be done is being done,” she told a crowded Commons.

Meanwhile Prime Minister Theresa May said on a visit to Washington to the White House from the outside gate of the Presidential home: “We will not give in to blackmail. These prison officers can stay out on the roof for all I care. They are behaving like a bunch of common criminals.”