Birmingham Prison is in lockdown this evening as riots erupt over
Riots have erupted at a prison in Birmingham with ‘one wing lost’, reports have suggested.
Footage posted online shows armed officers rushing into HMP Birmingham, one of the country’s biggest prisons, seeking to quell the raging unrest.
Witnesses claim Tornado teams were sent in to try and tackle the protest, which was ostensibly over conditions in the prison.
Sources have told the Birmingham Mail that the unrest began at around 3.30pm.
And other witnesses told Metro.co.uk that there are ‘two support units and alarms going off all over the place’ at the prison.
Prisoners have also been heard chanting ‘we want burn’ – a reference to the cigarette ban, which was brought into UK prisons on September 1.
A number of inmates reportedly refused to go back into their cells after association.
Moe, a criminology lecturer in the West Midlands, tweeted: ‘Just been informed that the nationals (trained prison riot officers) have been deployed, and are now entering the prison.’
G4S runs the Category B prison, which houses more than 1,000 inmates.
The HM Prison Service claimed it was dealing with ‘an ongoing incident involving a small number of prisoners’ at the prison in Winson Green.
It’s claimed that two wings of the prison are protesting about conditions, and that one wing has been left ‘severely damaged’.
Moe added: ‘Not sure what’s started it all, but the recent smoking ban may be influential.’
It is as yet unclear whether there are any injuries.
A G4S spokesman said: ‘Our teams are responding to an incident on one wing at HMP Birmingham. We are working with colleagues from HM Prison and Probation Service to bring the incident to a safe conclusion.’
The prison was hit by massive riots in December 2016 – some of the worst seen in a British jail in years.
In those riots, at least 600 prisoners took control of four wings of the prison.
The disturbance raged for more than 12 hours, with Tornado squads being urgently drafted in from different parts of the country.
Prisoners started fires, destroyed documents, smashed up cells and offices and sprayed officers with fire hoses.
In the wake of the riot, more than 460 inmates were moved away from the prison.
Read more: http://metro.co.uk/2017/09/03/massive-riot-breaks-out-at-one-of-the-uks-biggest-prisons-6900387/#ixzz4reWUO2YZ