Mutiny at Dartmoor

Evening Star, Issue 21009, 25 January 1932, Page 9

Mutiny at Dartmoor

Savage Struggle Between Convicts and Warders

Many Prisoners and Officials Injured

Press Association—By Telegraph—Copyright,

LONDON, January 24. (Received January 25, at 10.20 a.m.) As the result of a violent outbreak at Dartmoor prison, at Princetown, following a fortnight’s unrest culminating in serious mutinous scenes, sixty to, seventy convicts and a dozen warders are in the gaol hospital suffering from injuries. It is believed that one was killed. ' A savage struggle between 300 and 400 convicts and a full staff of armed warders, reinforced by hundreds of policemen from the surrounding districts, raged for two hours. A prisoner attempted to escape on January 19, and the prisoners attacked and injured two warders on January 23. All yesterday and last night rumours prevailed that a demonstration would be attempted, consequently the warders’ week-end leave was stopped. The prison resounded with shouting at G o’clock in the morning—the usual rising hour. The convicts yelled and hammered on their doors, creating pandemonium, and throw the porridge over the warders, who took the breakfasts to the cells.

thorities from ascertaining if, as is believed, two convicts escaped. The inmates of the prison numbered 480, and the warders 150. Precautions which were believed to be adequate had been taken to maintain discipline, but it was not anticipated that the mutineers would show such resource. MEETING THE EMERGENCY. Nearly every resident of Princetown was enrolled as a special constable, and was armed with a rifle. Fifty Plymouth constables patrolled fifteen miles of Dartmoor. It was found that the convicts had deprived the warders of their keys, and smashed every window, and had broken into the offices and stpres, compelling the Governor to run for his life to a block in which the inmates remained loyal. The rioters, wers defying the warders to attack them. As reinforcements arrived the warders covered the howling mob with rifles. A PITCHED BATTLE. After the police officer had ordered a baton charge, which culminated in a pitched battle before the outbreak was quelled, severity convicts lay unconscious on the pavement. The police warders hustled the remainder to the cells; Some surrendered, but over 100 fought desperately until they were overpowered. Even an omnibus driver who brought reinforcements was given a rifle and told to fire at any convict mounting the walls, Mr Alexander Maxwell (chairman of the Prison Commissioners) declined to make a statement for publication. The police, however, officially announced that trouble was foreseen, and that the governor of the prison had arranged for the necessary assistance. JUST IN TIME. An eye-witness declares that the police arrived in< the nick of time to prevent 300 desperate convicts escaping and terrorising the countryside, “ 1 have never seen more ghastly hand-to-hand fighting, even during the war,” he said. The whole yard was spattered with blood. A convict saved a warder’s life by shutting him in an empty stokehold and delending him with a shovel against three assailants.

BEGINNING OF THE RIOT

THE CHURCH PARADE PRISONERS RUSH AT WARDERS LONDON, January 24. (Received January. 25, at noon.) A‘ desperate struggle began when the prisoners paraded for church at 9 o’clock in the morning, the convicts hurling themselves on the warders. The group dashed to the governor’s office, in the centre of the prison, snatched embers from a coal fire, and ignited the building. The flames were visible for miles. The noise of rifle fire following Saturday night’s sleepless apprehension deepened the alarm of the Princetown residents. The governor telephoned to the chief constables at Exeter and Plymouth, and from those places police were rushed in motor cars. A fire engine was despatched, and 100 soldiers at the barracks paraded in service kit and steel helmets awaiting orders to rush to Princetown. CONVICTS TRY TO GET AWAY. Meanwhile the convicts attempted to escape in all directions. Wardens armed with rifles prevented a hundred scaling the boundary wall. The firemen had controlled the flames by 1 o’clock. - Ambulance men attended the casualties. Their injuries were chiefly received in the police charge or by bullet wounds. The fire damaged the clock tower and the offices in the central block, and destroyed the records, preventing the au-

ALL CONVICTS ACCOUNTED FOR NO FATALITIES LONDON, January 24. (Received January 25, at 1 p.m.) Official: No convicts escaped, and no one was killed. The convicts had complained of the food, but the cause of the outbreak cannot bo stated.