A court has been told staff at the north-east’s multimillion-pound super-jail “panicked” when inmates formed an angry mob.
Prison officer Naomi Adams told jurors at Aberdeen Sheriff Court yesterday that warders at HMP Grampian were not experienced in dealing with riots.
She was giving evidence during the fifth day of the trial against six former inmates accused of rioting.
Robert Gill, 26, from Newmachar, Stephen Sim, 31, from Stonehaven, Michael Stewart 31, from Forfar, Dominic Jordan, 30, from Merseyside, Sandy Mundie, 30, from Aberdeen and 33-year-old George Thomson, from Aberdeen, are all accused of banding together to form an “evil mob” at the prison on May 13, 2014.
All the men accept they were being held in custody at the time of the offence, however they deny taking any part in the disturbance themselves.
This week prison officers who were working on the night of the incident have told jurors the situation escalated as tensions grew between staff seconded from other establishments and the inmates.
The court previously heard that officers were first made aware there was an issue that evening when they smelled home made hooch.
The court heard that a few minutes later a pool table was tipped upside down and one prisoner could be seen climbing grill gate before smashing a CCTV camera.
During her evidence 22-year-old Miss Adams said she was left with one of her colleagues in the C block of the Ellon wing to observe what was happening behind the locked gate.
She told the court that all the other prison wardens had been evacuated by that point.
She said she had been instructed to stay where she was to report back to management what was happening.
Miss Adams said she was eventually forced to leave herself when smoke started to drift down the section towards her.
By then the prisoners had completely taken over the area.
During cross-examination yesterday Miss Adams said staff at the new jail were not used to handling situations of that scale.
She said: “There was panic amongst the staff. It was something we had not experienced before and with it being a new establishment we were focusing on getting the other sections secured over.”
The trial, before Sheriff Andrew Miller, continues.
