Express & Star

HMP Birmingham riot: Six convicted of mutiny after 'worst prison riot since Strangeways'

Six inmates have been convicted of their part in a prison mutiny which sparked a 15-hour riot at HMP Birmingham, causing millions of pounds of damage.

Published
Last updated
HMP Birmingham

Luke Mansell, 24 and John Burton, 39, were found guilty of their roles in the trouble which spread to four wings, and saw 500 prisoners let out of their cells.

Four others – Ross Wilkinson, Robert Smith, Nathan Weston and Grant Samed – all admitted a charge of prison mutiny before trial. Order was only restored at the G4S-run jail after hundreds of specially-trained ‘Tornado’ team prison officers, backed by riot police, were drafted in to quell the riot on December 16 last year.

WATCH from inside the prison during last year's riot

The two men, who had denied prison mutiny at Birmingham Crown Court, were convicted on Friday after a trial lasting nearly three weeks.

Jurors failed to reach verdicts on a charge of mutiny for two others, Carl Brookes, 33, and 30-year-old Ross Queen, and the six men and six women were formally discharged by the judge. Brookes and Queen had previously admitted a separate charge of taking an unauthorised photo in jail.

All those convicted will be sentenced next week. Jurors heard how trouble flared when a group of prisoners climbed onto ‘suicide netting’ on the fourth-floor landing on N wing, shortly before a set of keys was stolen from a prison guard.

Opening the case earlier this month, Simon Davis, prosecuting, said officers were pelted with paint and pool balls.

Televisions were thrown out of windows and bedding set on fire amid scenes of the ensuing chaos. It was the worst disorder at a UK jail since the Manchester Strangeways riots in 1990. Mansell and Burton were convicted of their part - being among those inmates who clambered onto the trampoline-like netting on N Wing.

Jurors unanimously convicted Mansell and Burton of mutiny, who, together with Wilkinson, 24, Weston 23, Samed, 30, and Smith, 34, will be sentenced on Monday for an offence which carries up to 10 years behind bars.

Speaking afterwards, Detective Inspector Caroline Corfield, of West Midlands Police, said: “It’s frightening even to watch on the recorded footage so I can’t imagine how it would have felt to be involved on that day.”