Teen inmates stage violent stand-off

Simon Tomlinson

FOUR teenage inmates sparked a violent roof top stand-off with prison guards in a Suffolk jail.

Joviano Vieira, Darren Green and two others are today serving another jail term after causing �26,000 of destruction at Warren Hill Young Offenders' Institute, during which they:

Barricaded themselves into a recreation area.

Threw a table tennis table at a prison guard.

Smeared blood around the room.

Chucked paint at negotiators and smashed windows while causing havoc on the roof.

All four pleaded guilty to violent disorder at the Hollesley prison in May last year.

Ipswich Crown Court was told yesterday how the violence erupted in a recreation area at around 8pm because Vieira, 18, was angry at losing certain privileges.

A prison officer described how Vieira had a “face on him” and there was a strange atmosphere.

After all the inmates had been ordered to return to their cells for the night, the four defendants remained in the room and Vieira began banging a plank of wood against a chair.

As the prisoner officer approached Vieira, Green, 18, threw a table tennis table at her, but it narrowly missed.

Prosecutor Peter Gair said: “The inmates barricaded themselves in. Armed with poles, jugs of boiling water and paint, they smashed the whole area up.”

One of them took off his T-shirt and smeared his body with blood, Mr Gair added.

The four then climbed onto the roof of the recreation area and began smashing windows and threw paint at negotiators.

After more than four hours, Green was the first to give himself up, followed by the second inmate, who cannot be named for legal reasons, two hours later.

Vieira came down shortly afterwards, but it wasn't until nearly eight hours after the violence began that the final inmate, who also cannot be named, surrendered.

Vieira and Green were each given a two-year sentence at a young offenders' institute, while the two other inmates were handed detention and training orders of 12 months and 18 months.