1:39pm UK, Sunday January 02, 2011
Prisons minister Crispin Blunt has declared inmates involved in a New Year's Day riot at an open prison could face prosecution.
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About 40 prisoners wearing balaclavas went on the rampage at Ford Prison, near Arundel, West Sussex, after being asked to provide breath tests, the Prison Officers Association said.
Six accommodation blocks, a gymnasium, a mail room, a snooker room and a pool room, including 10 newly-installed pool tables, were all damaged.
The disturbance started at midnight on January 1 - prisoners were finally brought under control by specially trained staff at 10pm on Saturday.
Mr Blunt visited the facility to talk to staff and prisoners about what happened. It is estimated the rioters caused £3m' worth of damage.
He said: "There are now going to be two inquiries. There will be a Prison Service internal inquiry, and there will be a number of issues that will have to be addressed and examined in the course of that.
"And I also anticipate that there will be a police inquiry into the events that will then lead to criminal prosecutions.
"I hope and expect there to be full co-operation by everyone in Ford prison... to make sure that the perpetrators are brought to justice."
A Prison Service spokeswoman said 23 inmates have had to be moved from Ford prison as of Sunday morning.
Michael Spurr, of the National Offender Management Service, rejected claims the prison was understaffed on the night of the riot.
It has been claimed that only two prison officers and four support staff were on duty at the time to manage a population of almost 500 inmates.
"These types of incidents in open prisons are rare and it is to the credit of all the staff involved that no staff or prisoners sustained significant injuries during the incident," Mr Spurr said.
"Staffing levels at the prison at the time the incident began were risk assessed and considered appropriate and usual for an open establishment such as Ford."
Mark Freeman, of the Prison Officers' Association, said alcohol had been a concern for some time, with dozens of empty bottles found in recent days.
He said prisoners turned violent when they refused to be breathalysed.
Mr Freeman likened recent attempts to test inmates for alcohol to "a scene out of Benny Hill", with officers chasing prisoners for days on end.
Things turned violent when guards suspected some prisoners of seeing in the New Year with alcohol, he said.
Prison bosses say they have detained the ringleaders
"When the prisoners refused to be breathalysed they became violent along with other prisoners and went on what we call a mutiny, this is a prison mutiny," Mr Freeman said.
He added: "This has been a long time waiting to happen."
Mr Freeman pointed to a lack of staff as being a contributory factor in the violence.
"It's very difficult when you have a very small staff, which they did last night," he said.
HMP Ford houses category D prisoners - those trusted by the authorities not to escape. Its two wings can accommodate up to 557 men.
High-profile inmates include footballer George Best, who served time at Ford in 1984 for drink-driving, assaulting a police officer and failing to answer bail.
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