Thousands of prison officers protesting against the sentence of an inmate who bashed four colleagues have been ordered to stand down from striking.

Workers at Cessnock Correctional Centre, in the NSW Hunter region, and Bathurst Correctional Centre, west of Sydney, walked off the job in a snap protest after a local court gave Cameron Welsh what they deem is a "slap on the wrist".

Welsh assaulted four prison officers at the Cessnock prison in an incident earlier in 2025, with all four taken to hospital and two left unable to work again.

Their colleagues across 34 other jails walked off the job, sending prisons into lockdown, and were planning to continue to their protest on Friday.

In an urgent Industrial Relations Commission hearing on Thursday, the NSW government argued the local, dist

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