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Graham Smith
Jan Thompson
Graham Mumby-Croft


    The Strangeways Riot. My Minor Part in IT


Having read the comprehensive contributions from Graham Mumby-Croft and now Jeff Woolhouse who describes his "Even Smaller part in it" I feel obliged to make my own insignificant but nevertheless exciting, to me, contribution, not to the riot but more to the immediate consequences of it.

On the 1st April1990 I was gainfully employed in the Prison Service Information and Technology Group (PSITG) Installation Group and on that day I had made my way to HMP The Wolds where the team had just completed the installation of the Local Inmate Database System (LIDS). I was about to instruct the staff there in the mystical and wondrous workings of this new administrative tool replacing the previously wholly inadequate acetate and chinagraph system specifically designed in the 19th century for the warders and also the more sophisticated parchment and quill technique of recording applied by the treasury grades. Governors were either fully up to speed on all systems or generally mystified and reliant on uninformed advice.

As I arrived my paging device, which had lain dormant in my briefcase, alerted me to its presence, this sounds strange now in 2023 but in 1990 it was as mysterious a device as was LIDS, I responded, and it was my illustrious team Leader David Pike (G4). I should explain the dynamic of "The PSITG North Team" lt was made up with a G4 Team Leader, a G5, 2 PO's, 2 SO's, 2 HEO's, and 2 AO's, a team of 10 and all performing the entire range of installation functions within the team and all specially selected on their limited knowledge of computer systems and workings. Our objective was to install a working LIDS system into all the North Region Prisons and train both the uniform staff and administrators in its use.

I was one of the Senior Officers in the team and the paged telephone call was to inform me that HMP Manchester prisoners had gone on the rampage and that all staff had evacuated the prisoner areas. While the prisoners were still contained in and on the building all normal functions were ceased. We the "North Team" had only weeks before installed LIDS at Manchester, and it was now the source and electronic repository of all inmate information. The plan was for me to recreate a functional discipline office in a room at Manchester Regional Office. I was told that a lorry was on its way to Manchester with ten computer workstations, a base station (Central Processor) and all the wiring and peripheral equipment etc... necessary to allow me to build a replica discipline office in regional office. Before I could do that, I needed to gain entry into HMP Manchester and download the data from their base station and take it to regional office and then load it onto the system I had assembled there.

To that end I was to make my way from HMP The Wolds (Nr Hull) to HMP Manchester in all haste. To facilitate this, I was told that a police escort would meet me on the slip road to the M62 (just a mile from the prison) and they would escort me to the exit off the M62 where a police motorcycle escort would then take me the rest of the way. This is exactly what happened, and it was probably the most exciting eighty-mile drive of my life.

When I arrived at the prison, I needed to get to the base station computer which was located in the muniments room that was part of the outer wall of the prison. The access to it was from inside the prison grounds just a hundred yards from the main gate and directly below where the prisoners were occupying the roof space and in missile range. To get me to the muniments room they had to escort me there safely so the staff formed a Testudo (Latin for Tortoise) and I hid under it as they marched up to the door and let me in. All would have been well except for the valiant roof fighters had found some tins of powder paint and managed to get a direct hit on the shield directly above me and managed to spray my almost new sheepskin coat with powder blue paint.

Having been left alone I made myself comfortable in the muniments room and set the computer off downloading its system files and data which took about three hours to complete.

During the time spent in waiting for the computer to do its thing, I was in the muniments room and as a lowly Senior Officer from HMP Leeds I had no idea what a muniments room was or contained so the inquisitive ex-Security SO bit of my brain took over and I looked about and found a heap of old "Governors Journals". I looked for the oldest and read them with great interest. I remain proud of myself in that I didn't secrete one in my briefcase as a souvenir of my unusual access to such magnificent treasures. In any event my curiosity came to an end when a PO appeared with the Testudo and the question 'did I know anything about fax machines?' The assumption being that I was the only techie on site and might know something about fax machines. As it turned out I had recently set one up and that's just what was needed. So, I left my computer doing its work and was escorted to the main building and to what was the prison telephone switch room. The only space with a working telephone line had become the base of silver command (the redoubtable Brendan O'Friel) and there was a need for access to a fax machine. They had a machine but no one to set it up and I was delighted to be able to do so.

When I was returned to the muniments room the computer had completed its work. I was escorted back to the gate and off to the regional office where the lorry load of equipment had been unloaded into a good-sized room. I recall that I was met by Arnie Stapleton (Area Manager) who I knew, he had been my AGII Tutor at Wakefield Officer Training School sixteen years earlier. Apart from being well provided with mugs of tea the rest is a blur of sweat and swearing (all mine). I was charged with getting a replica of the Manchester discipline office ready for the discipline staff to get to work updating the database the next day, and that was achieved.

Before I close this tale of daring do, I would like to make separate mention of Brendan O'Friel who I hold in the highest regard. Before this catastrophic event the PSITG Team had installed the new LIDS system at Manchester towards the end of 1989,and I had been on that team. During the installation my wife was diagnosed with cervical cancer and taken into Leeds Hospital for major surgery. David Pike (The Boss)
sent me home to look after my two young children and I didn’t return to Manchester until January in the new year when our work had been completed with little left to do. On the morning of my return, I went to the mess for breakfast and Brendan was there having his own breakfast. When he saw me, he called me over and asked how my wife was. I had no idea that he knew who I was, why would he, but he did, and he knew she had been ill and cared enough to pause his breakfast to enquire after her. So, a belated but nonetheless sincere 'Thank you Brendan and keep well.'

ROGER OUTRAM