Birmingham prison rioters are jailed

Luke Mansell, 24 and John Burton, 39, were last week found guilty of a prison mutiny which caused "destruction on a grand scale", and saw more than 500 prisoners let out of their cells after inmates seized keys.

Three others, Ross Wilkinson, 24; Robert Smith, 34, and Nathan Weston, 23, all admitted the same charge before a Birmingham Crown Court trial.

Order was only restored at the G4S-run jail after hundreds of specially-trained "Tornado" team prison officers were drafted in to quell the disturbances on December 16, last year.

Sentencing today, the Recorder of Birmingham Judge Melbourne Inman QC told the men: "You were unquestionably the ring-leaders and instigators of the mutiny.

"The destruction you few caused and the hostility showed was replicated by the other hundreds of prisoners.

"It was your direct action in allowing you to get hold of the keys, enabled the release of all the other prisoners on the wings."

He added that there had been "graphic evidence" of the violence faced by prison officers, which had "a profound impact" on staff.

The judge said the jail's wings were left "uninhabitable", and "there had been destruction on a grand scale".

He added that "a clear message had to be given to anyone considering this type of action".

Burton, who had a lengthy record of 89 offences, was jailed for nine years, along with Mansell.

Mansell, on remand at the time of the riot, was convicted in February 2017 of conspiracy to commit grievous bodily harm, for an "unpalatable" offence in which the victim was tied to a chair, had his penis branded with hair straighteners, was forced to eat faeces, and had a front tooth pulled out with pliers.

Wilkinson, a convicted burglar; Weston, who had been jailed for arson, and Smith, with 25 previous convictions, were each jailed for six years.

A sixth defendant, 30-year-old Grant Samed, will be sentenced in November.

Trouble first flared when the prisoners jumped on "suicide netting" on N wing's landing.

Threats to take hostages were then made, with Smith telling an officer "fancy some compensation, guv?" while Wilkinson threatened he "had a syringe".

Smith then snatched a set of keys from a prison officer while the man was distracted.

The loss of the keys triggered a rapid evacuation of the wing with prison guards being ordered: "Get out! They've got the keys."

The men then started unlocking the other prisoners, triggering a race against time to secure the jail.

Raj Punia, prosecuting, said at one stage just a single secured external gate leading to the main gatehouse stood between the inmates and a possible jail-break.

The barrister added "officers got to the gate just in time".

As the chaos spread, the gate witnessed a lengthy stand-off between riot squads on one side, and prisoners armed with pool balls, paint pots, and other makeshift weapons on the other.

A TV was dropped from a window narrowly missing a prison officer's head, while one riot officer described "pool balls bounce off his helmet".

Amid the turmoil, the prison's hospital wing, with 30 sick and ill inmates, also had to be "abandoned".

The impact on the jail's staff had been "harrowing", with one officer stating "I keep thinking about what would have happened if we hadn't got out".

Two other men; Carl Brookes, 33, and 30-year-old Ross Queen will be sentenced on Tuesday for taking an unauthorised photo in the prison, during the riot.