Swaleside jail 'taken over by inmates'

Prison officers have regained control of HMP Swaleside in Kent after up to 60 prisoners took control of an entire wing of the jail for six hours.

The Prison Officers Association chairman Mike Rolfe said specialist "Tornado" teams were deployed to the prison on the Isle of Sheppey.

The "riot will heighten concern in the Ministry of Justice about the stability of the country’s overcrowded prisons", says The Times, and will "put further pressure on Liz Truss, the Justice Secretary".

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The BBC says the "extent of the disturbance was unclear, but it did not appear to be on the scale of a riot at HMP Birmingham last week".

Former prisoner and prison affairs academic Alex Cavendish claims that a number of the prisoners in HMP Swaleside had recently been transferred from HMP Birmingham after last week's riot there.

The Daily Mirror has published video footage from inside the affected area of the prison.

"Inmates - who filmed the footage on an 'illegal' mobile phone and emailed it out - can be seen running around unchallenged," the paper says. Several people seen in the video were "setting off what looks like fire extinguishers and brandishing pool balls".

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Opposition MPs have called for an explanation from the Justice Secretary in the wake of fresh outbreaks of violence within UK prisons, The Guardian reports. Five serious disturbances have broken out in recent weeks.

"In July, the independent monitoring board said [Swaleside] is not safe and staff shortage is the major cause," shadow justice spokesman Richard Burgon said. "As with the Birmingham prison, the public will once again wonder what action the justice secretary actually took in response to the board’s concerns."

The former home secretaries Ken Clarke and Jacqui Smith, and former deputy PM Nick Clegg, yesterday described the Birmingham riot as a "wake-up call" in a joint letter to The Times. They called for the prison population to be cut to levels last seen under Margaret Thatcher.