The governor of the Maze prison has told the BBC he knew there was a risk of violence shortly before the leader of a loyalist splinter group was murdered inside the jail.

LVF leader Billy Wright was shot as he was taken to visiting area

Billy Wright, leader of the Loyalist Volunteer Force, was shot two days after Christmas. He was serving a sentence in the top-security Maze, which houses Northern Ireland's paramilitary prison population.

His death sparked off the current spiral of violence which has seen the deaths of seven people - the most recent on Monday evening.

Now, in a BBC documentary, the governor of the Belfast jail, Martin Mogg, says he accepts it was a mistake to house loyalist and republican prisoners together.

LVF chief Wright was held in the same block as the republican INLA - the only two factions in the prison not in the ceasefire.

Gunmen climbed over a roof to shoot Wright as he was being taken to a visiting area. Prison staff often warned they feared an attack was being planned.

Funeral of Wright has unleashed a new wave of violence in Northern Ireland

Mr Mogg told the BBC: "You take account of those signals. I did talk to Billy Wright about the possibility of a threat from the INLA and I talked to the INLA about the threat from the LVF.

"We'd got to the stage where, as far as those two groups were concerned, they were indicating to me there was a sort of neutrality developing between them and there wouldn't be an attack."

The Governor admits he was naïve but says there was no space to separate the INLA and LVF. It has also emerged he received warnings from Board of Prison visitors and welfare organisations about the danger of violence flaring between the two groups.

But Mr Mogg said: "I don't need the Red Cross and those people to tell me what's going on at the prison.

Martin Mogg: "Two groups indicated there wouldn't be an attack"

"The prisoners were telling me, my staff were telling me. I was aware of the situation - I had no option but to leave them where they were. What I tried to do was manage that risk."

Asked whether he failed to control the situation when a prisoner was murdered, Mr Mogg replied: "Absolutely."

The shooting was the second major breach of security at the Maze in recent months. During a summer party for prisoners' families, IRA man Liam Averill escaped through the front gate dressed as a woman.

Authorities insist that they - not the inmates - run the Maze

But Alan Shannon, of the Northern Ireland Prison Service, said the concentration of 500 terrorist prisoners was unique. "I know of no other prison service which has to cope with a problem on that scale.

"These prisoners, who have political and military influence outside the jail, attract considerable sympathy and interest in society."

Mr Shannon added that if an inquiry into the prison's management criticised him, he would resign after six years in his job.

"If the report was to conclude that poor judgement or negligence on my part was the cause of some of these difficulties, then I'd be ready to step aside and let someone else have a go," he said.

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