Claims of cover-up over trouble at HMP Oakwood are denied

Conflicting reports emerged after trouble broke out on a wing at the G4S-run prison last month.

An Oakwood prison officer made the riot claims, alleging that doors were booby-trapped and an entire wing of the £150 million superjail was trashed.

The official word from G4S and the Ministry of Justice was that the incident was 'concerted indiscipline' which took nine hours to resolve and involved up to 20 prisoners, who threatened officers and caused damage to cells.

However, during a heated debate in the House of Commons, Prisons Minister Jeremy Wright flatly denied the riot allegations. He told the House: "There's been no cover-up here. I went to Oakwood 10 days ago. I spoke to an officer engaged in the incident, I also spoke to a prisoner who was there at the time – though not involved – and I saw some of the CCTV coverage too.

"So I'm very clear about how serious that incident was. But to describe it as a full-scale prison riot is, in my view, inaccurate.

"There were 20 prisoners involved in this incident out of a total of 1,600 in Oakwood. The wing is now back in use and the issue was professionally resolved."The minister was responding to a question from Labour MP Paul Flynn, who told the Government to abandon its 'PR spin' and 'tell the truth' about what had happened.

During the session shadow justice minister Jenny Chapman said more progress should have been made in the two years the prison had been open.

She told Mr Wright: "You are being way too complacent about the failure of G4S at Oakwood and given the delay in the implementation of the probation changes due to fears of public safety, how do we know you are not going to be equally as tolerant with failure when you privatise probation?"

The minister replied saying there was no complacency and said it was not unheard of that prisons which are running-up in the first two years of operation have difficulties.