A pool ball, bodily waste and even a cup of tea are just some of the things inmates in north-east prisons have used to assault staff.
New figures show that officers at HMP Grampian and HMP Aberdeen were attacked by inmates using a range of items, including plastic bottles, chairs, pens and lighters.
Some even needed medical assistance after the incidents.
Among the most obscure of weapons used was a simple pen in August last year, in the Banff wing of HMP Grampian in Peterhead. As a result, a residential officer needed to be treated at hospital for a “minor injury”.
The superjail opened in 2014 to replace Peterhead’s Victorian era prison, which has latterly become a family-friendly museum.
In its last year of use, however, an officer was spat on and hit with a pool ball in the D Hall section of the complex.
In total, from 2012 to March this year, 66 assaults took place across north-east prisons, with six people requiring hospital treatment as a result.
Of these, 42 took place at HMP Grampian.
The Banff wing of the £140million facility, which has been likened to a “white elephant” by a local councillor in the past, has proved to be most violent.
Nineteen assaults have taken place in the wing since the prison opened.
Fifteen attacks have been carried out in its Ellon wing, seven in Dyce and one in Cruden.
A spokesman for the Scottish Prison Service said: “We take assaults very seriously to our staff and prison officers.
“The figures are evidence that it is a challenge in the prison in Scotland.”
Since HMP Grampian opened, it has been plagued by local criticism.
Following riots two years which transferred young offenders out of the facility, the prison was branded a “white elephant” by Peterhead councillor Alan Buchan.
Labour MSP Lewis Macdonald has also warned that it could be “many years” before the prison is used as intended.
He said: “Clearly there’s been a lot of public money spent and it’s failed to deliver what it was designed to do – I think that will cause a lot of concern.”
