1st Fatality Confirmed in British Prison Riot; 39 Convicts Hold Out

One of Britain’s worst prison riots this century claimed its first confirmed fatality Tuesday, and an inmate’s father said his son saw six men killed after convicts staged kangaroo court trials.

The Home Office said that Derek White, 46, who was awaiting trial on sex offenses, was injured in the riot and died in the hospital where he was treated for head wounds and chest pains.

Media reports that up to 20 prisoners were killed in the violence that erupted at Strangeways prison in the northern city of Manchester on Sunday have not been confirmed.

But the father of an inmate said after visiting his son at another prison Tuesday that sex offenders were hanged with ropes made from bedsheets.

The father, who asked not to be identified, told British Broadcasting Corp. television that his son had described the killings.

“There were makeshift ropes made out of sheets tied round these prisoners’ necks. They were stood up on the landing railings and charges were read out against them and then they were pushed over the end,” he said.

Prison officers fought a two-hour battle Tuesday to retake part of the jail, but a small hard core of inmates refused to surrender.

The Home Office said only 39 of the prison’s original 1,600 inmates are still defying wardens and police after another 60 surrendered during the day.

Ivor Serle of the Prison Officers Assn. told reporters: “They are the hard core of the hard core.”

The authorities now control about two-thirds of the jail, much of it burned out in the rioting, with the remaining rioters driven back to the upper floors and roofs of four cellblocks.