PRISON RIOT 10 inmates in hospital

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33451, 5 February 1974, Page 13

PRISON RIOT 10 inmates in hospital

(N.Z.P.A.‘Reuter—Copyright) SYDNEY, Feb. 5. Prison officials have re-! gained control of the maxi- : mum-security Bathurst Prison, 130 miles west of Sydney, after the riot by 250 ■ inmates that has left’ most |of the multi-million-dollar complex destroyed, and 10 ■prisoners in hospital with bullet and gunshot wounds. I A tight security cordon .surrounded the still-smoking prison this morning, as prison officials and police conferred on how to transfer the prison’s entire population of 340 to the Long Bay Prison in Sydney. Prison officials believe that the riot had been planned for some time, and that it; had been inspired and organised by prisoners serving life sentences. Trouble had been simmerling for many months: alle-i gations of violence against I [prisoners by warders have! been raised in the New South Wales Parliament, and state; politicians are understood to; have been receiving a large I amount of militant penal re-j form literature in recent; months. The New South Wales Minister of Justice (Mr John Maddison) said last night that the cause of the riot had yet to be determined, and the! damage assessed.