Britain Behind Bars - A secret history S01E01 (21st July 2024)
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00:00Behind every cell door lies a secret history.
00:07As a criminal barrister, I visited prisons across the country.
00:12I've always believed that how we punish people
00:15goes to the heart of who we are as a society.
00:18In this series, I'm uncovering the hidden past of British jails.
00:23All walks of life have walked through that gate,
00:26from Victorian beggars to cold-blooded killers.
00:30Going behind prison walls.
00:33In this wing here, a man being slowly walked to his death.
00:38And delving into rare historical archives.
00:42John Nutt stealing sheep, Thomas Bennet stealing a mare.
00:46All of these executed in front of the prison.
00:50I'll discover notorious gangsters.
00:53The Kray brothers believed that this is a critical moment
00:56that sets off their life of crime.
00:59Legendary crimes, highway robberies,
01:02the stuff of swashbuckling history.
01:06And everyday thieves.
01:08Leave prison, nowhere to live, go to the workhouse, back to prison again.
01:14Ex-prisoners will reflect on cases from the past.
01:17If I was around in 1787,
01:21I would have been executed.
01:24It's mad because that person could be me.
01:27What can these stories tell us about our prison system?
01:31About 100 prisoners have taken over.
01:33Everything went chaotic.
01:35It's just one of the worst memories of my career.
01:39Britain's criminal past brought to life.
01:42You're going to have to fight for your life in here.
01:45Some of them at some point will be released.
01:48What happens inside matters.
02:19Gosh.
02:21I mean, it literally stops you in your tracks, doesn't it?
02:24You go...
02:26But the one thing you know for sure when you creep up on it
02:30and then it immediately comes to you is,
02:33that is every single bit the prison.
02:38HMP Dartmoor is one of Britain's most notorious prisons.
02:43Isolated in the middle of Dartmoor National Park,
02:46it's one of the oldest operational prisons in the country,
02:50with nearly 700 men still inside.
02:59It's a fortress. It's Britain's answer to Alcatraz.
03:03When I came to practice at the bar,
03:05Dartmoor, that building, represented the absolute end of the line.
03:11Over two centuries, Dartmoor has built a reputation
03:15as Britain's toughest jail,
03:17housing the most serious offenders,
03:20famous for its harsh regime
03:24and outbreaks of extreme violence.
03:29It still has, to this day, a really bad reputation
03:33as being one of the harshest, most scariest of prisons.
03:37It had a reputation as being an austere, hard nick,
03:40where some of the most assaultive and difficult prisoners ended up.
03:44It was basically an end-of-the-line place.
03:47Dartmoor was a punishment prison.
03:50You kind of felt like you're going to have to fight for your life in here.
03:54You're going to have to kill.
03:56You just lived in fear all the time.
04:01But how did Dartmoor earn this reputation?
04:04And what was it like to be locked inside?
04:16Dartmoor Prison loomed over my career as a barrister,
04:19but it first came to my attention in 1990,
04:22when a violent outbreak hit the news.
04:27Prison riot at Dartmoor.
04:29Dozens of prisoners were arrested.
04:31Prison riot at Dartmoor.
04:33Dozens of prisoners have barricaded themselves in
04:36and the jail is on fire.
04:38Bleak and isolated, Dartmoor has always been
04:41Britain's most notorious prison.
04:43Prisoners have control of one wing and one roof.
04:47120 cells torn apart by their inmates in a frenzy of rioting.
04:52I've dealt with cases of prisoners breaking their cells up.
04:56I've never seen anything like this.
04:59Pulling off the walls, pulling anything,
05:02breaking the building up like caged animals.
05:05I was sent to this prison for a kicking!
05:10Brutality in this jail!
05:12I've been threatened with brutality in this prison!
05:17Do I understand people that would look at that and think,
05:20those bastards...
05:22..burning down a prison.
05:24How dare you? You're in Dartmoor for a reason.
05:27They don't put you there unless you are a violent criminal.
05:31On the other hand, that last man that's holding out,
05:34listen to what he says, you know,
05:36but the brutality in this jail, he says it twice,
05:39the brutality in this jail that I've experienced.
05:42It's easy to look at this and come away with a very simplistic view.
05:46But what causes a riot?
05:48And ultimately, who's to blame?
05:54Violence isn't justified.
05:56There are no circumstances, I think,
05:58where anybody really benefits from large-scale riots.
06:03OK, we're in prison for committing crimes,
06:05we hold our hands up to that.
06:07But don't treat me less than an animal,
06:09because as soon as you treat me less than an animal,
06:12then the guns are out.
06:17So if a riot is where it ended up in 1990,
06:20how and when did it all begin?
06:26Dartmoor started life in 1809
06:29to house foreign prisoners from the Napoleonic Wars.
06:33It then reopened in 1850 with a radical new purpose.
06:39The transportation of convicts to the colonies was winding down
06:43and the government needed a new way
06:45to house offenders found guilty of serious crimes.
06:50The convict prison was born,
06:52an experiment in which Dartmoor helped lead the way.
07:02So this comes from the Daily News, Thursday, October 2nd, 1851.
07:08A visit to the experimental prison at Dartmoor.
07:11The distinctive features of the Dartmoor prison
07:13are a combination of associated labour by day with separation at night
07:18and a system of rewards and encouragements to convicts,
07:21which cannot but stimulate them generally to industry and good conduct.
07:25We then entered one of the wards.
07:28There we found 58 men at work as tailors and shoemakers.
07:32The men appeared to be pursuing their labour very steadily.
07:35The men were most respectful in their behaviour.
07:39And this is the point.
07:41No-one would have imagined if he were not aware of it
07:44from his previous knowledge that he was amongst the worst of our population.
07:49We trust that such a course of humane treatment
07:52may be found beneficial in reclaiming the convicts from crime.
07:56I have to say, it's a fascinating thing to read
07:59because at Dartmoor, the critical element is the rehabilitation element.
08:03What should they be teaching them
08:05in order for them to, once they're released, be safe members of society?
08:11It's an experiment. Who knows? They haven't thought about this before.
08:15This picture of a system that appears to be working
08:19doesn't last forever and the question is why?
08:24The optimism of 1851 faded quickly
08:27as public opinion turned against ideas of rehabilitation.
08:31At convict prisons like Dartmoor,
08:34the emphasis began to shift away from the attempted reform of prisoners
08:38and towards greater punishment and hard labour.
08:42So what was life like under this tougher regime?
08:47One case stands out.
08:49Joseph Denny.
08:51As a black man in the Victorian prison system,
08:54his story is unusual and remarkably well-documented.
08:59Denny's case reveals just how harsh life inside could be.
09:04He comes from Barbados.
09:06He's a sailor.
09:08He's got a previous conviction, burglary.
09:11There's a report from the Illustrated Police News
09:14and it describes Joseph Denny as an extraordinary criminal.
09:18A man of colour, he had been sentenced formally to seven years penal servitude
09:23and his conduct while in prison was so bad
09:26that he was required to serve the whole term of his sentence.
09:31It also appeared that he had been 11 times sentenced to be flogged.
09:36He had been kept on bread and water for 720 days at different periods.
09:42This is a hostile environment in a prison system full of white people.
09:48After his release, Denny immediately re-offended.
09:52Classed as a habitual and dangerous criminal,
09:55he was now sentenced to a further eight years
09:58at the country's toughest prison, Dartmoor.
10:03What's the crime? Burglary?
10:05The prisoner, when sentenced, was pronounced, exclaimed...
10:10"..Why don't you send me to the gallows at once?"
10:16I shall be sure to do something.
10:18I shall commit a murder before I have done.
10:21Here's somebody that would rather hang,
10:23he'd rather kill someone, than do another long-term sentence.
10:27And we know he is sentenced to eight years and he goes to Dartmoor.
10:32What happens to him?
10:36Oh, man, I remember going to Dartmoor for the first time.
10:41I was really scared.
10:43It's a crumbling prison, but it still holds a lot of weight
10:48for fear factor of not wanting to go there.
10:52It's real harsh. It is far out in the middle of nowhere.
10:57It was just scary to walk into.
11:00I didn't know whether I was going to live or die.
11:03Every day that you wake up is a lucky day,
11:06because it's quite dangerous inside.
11:08You can get stabbed or slashed for nothing,
11:11just for staring at somebody the wrong way.
11:15Joseph Denny arrived at Dartmoor in November 1881,
11:19when the prison's regime of hard labour was at its peak.
11:24I'm now off to meet Barry, who hopefully can tell me more
11:28of what Joseph would have experienced during his time in Dartmoor.
11:33KNOCKING
11:38Thanks.
11:40I've been looking at the file of Joseph Denny.
11:43He serves a seven-year sentence, he gets out.
11:46He's then almost immediately sentenced again.
11:49He says to the judge,
11:51''Look, I'm going to kill someone. Hang me now.''
11:54I think the prospect of spending years and years in an English convict prison,
11:58many people would have favoured the gallows over that.
12:01Men are hollowed out inside the convict prison.
12:03They leave as husks.
12:05By the time Joseph Denny is sent here in 1881...
12:09..what was Dartmoor like?
12:11It's the prison par excellence.
12:13It's the forbidding castle out on the bleak moorland.
12:17Even then? Even then.
12:19So people would know it as the worst of the worst places.
12:22He will be kept segregated,
12:25not open to contagion by any other prisoner.
12:28Not talking to anybody, no human contact.
12:31So many prisoners become mad.
12:33There's a crisis of mental health in the prison system.
12:36The first of many, actually.
12:38What sort of work would he have been doing?
12:40At Dartmoor, they receive hard labour,
12:42which will teach them the nobility of work.
12:45And it does have some special characteristics
12:48in the type of work that you do here.
12:50The quarrying, hacking away at stone, hour after hour after hour.
12:54Rain, sleet, snow during the winter,
12:57baking hot temperatures during the summer.
13:00Lots of accidents in the quarry,
13:02and lots of accidents when people get on the wrong side
13:06of another prisoner or warder as well.
13:08Joseph Denny's from Barbados.
13:10To what extent would that have affected his prison experience?
13:14Any difference marks you out as a problem in a prison estate.
13:17So your religion can be a problem,
13:19your nationality, if you're a person of colour.
13:22These are all just the ways that prison guards would have seen them,
13:25and then they're marked down for special forms of punishment.
13:29Joseph Denny received brutal punishment from his guards,
13:33including solitary confinement, deprivation of food
13:37and flogging with a cat o' nine tails.
13:40I can see that Joseph Denny serves the full eight years.
13:45Do you know what happened to him after he was released?
13:48A year afterwards, actually, there's a newspaper report here.
13:52Oh, Jesus.
13:54Joseph Denny, a native of Barbados,
13:56was committed for trial yesterday by Tavistock Magistrates
14:00on the charge of breaking into Dartmoor prison
14:03with the intention of setting it on fire.
14:06The prisoner, who had been a convict in Dartmoor,
14:09cherished a strong hatred against Chief Warder Hardy,
14:12who he alleged had cruelly treated him.
14:15Bloody hell.
14:19Here's a man hell-bent on getting back into the prison
14:22to reap justice on the governor.
14:24Breaking back into the prison,
14:26regardless of what happens if he gets caught,
14:30and I take me hat off to him.
14:35It was them against us.
14:39Realistically, every day, prison staff are entirely outnumbered.
14:43At any minute, a situation that's completely benign
14:46could turn into one that is life-threatening.
14:51The harsh treatment Joseph Denny received inside
14:54proved too much for him.
14:57After breaking back into Dartmoor,
14:59determined to set the prison on fire and kill the Chief Warder,
15:03he was captured and put on trial.
15:08And he gives a description of what life was like in there.
15:12I mean, it's horrifying.
15:15Speaking of Dartmoor,
15:17if there is a hell, that place is hell.
15:21That's Joseph's words from the past.
15:26I was treated worse than an animal
15:29whilst I was in prison at Dartmoor.
15:32It's out of the way there, and they may do what they like.
15:36For nothing, whatever, he was ordered into irons,
15:39not only because he was a man of colour and a plain speaker.
15:43Several times he had been flogged,
15:45sometimes through his own fault, but at others for nothing.
15:49He's led away with a chilling...
15:52..chilling last moment as he looks at the Chief Warder and says,
15:57I shall remember you.
16:00The system that conspired to ensure he lived in his description,
16:05a living hell, being treated worse than any animal
16:09while I was in prison at Dartmoor.
16:13This is not a loss of hope. This is a loss of humanity.
16:17He lent to that prison a dangerous criminal, perhaps.
16:20He left it an even more dangerous criminal, intent on revenge.
16:26I don't think inflicting pain on somebody
16:29is going to make them change their ways.
16:31If anything, it's a bomb waiting to go off.
16:35And at Dartmoor, it was only a matter of time
16:38until tensions inside the prison would explode into violence.
17:00I'm at the front of a concrete arch
17:03that leads into Dartmoor Prison.
17:06And the sign there in Latin says,
17:08Parcere subjectis, pity the vanquished.
17:13You know, I've been to plenty of prisons before,
17:16but absolutely none like this.
17:18It's unique and bleak.
17:27Jail isn't a place to joke about.
17:31It's 90% violent people.
17:35I saw a young lad get sliced on his back with razor blades
17:40and I'd only been in that prison for about 20 minutes.
17:44At Dartmoor, we called the people
17:46who just couldn't behave themselves anywhere else.
17:49So they were tasty, if you like, and to that extent,
17:52we did a dirty and difficult job for the rest of the prison system.
17:57By the 1920s, Dartmoor was famous
18:00for housing the country's most serious criminals.
18:03But was locking up all these dangerous offenders together
18:07in one place a wise policy?
18:11After an upturn in violence amongst prisoners
18:14and increased assaults on staff,
18:16the prison erupted in January 1932.
18:21The toughest prison in the country, that's Dartmoor,
18:24the home of many desperate criminals
18:26and men who were serving life sentences.
18:28400 prisoners mutinied and ran amok.
18:31We now enable you to see beyond the prison walls
18:34and into the scene of the revolt.
18:36And it was on either side of this road
18:38that the fierce hand-to-hand encounter took place
18:41between the Plymouth police and the convicts.
18:44We get a clear view of the building which was fired.
18:50As I've watched old news footage,
18:52it's Dartmoor and Princetown in a state of emergency.
18:55Right from the beginning of the footage,
18:57Britain's shocked at news of convicts' desperate fight
19:00at our toughest prison.
19:02By 1932, everybody knows Dartmoor.
19:07It's got a name, a legend.
19:09It's fascinating and essential to find out what it was
19:13that caused 400 prisoners to burn the place down,
19:16burn it to the ground.
19:23Can you give us your impressions of the mutiny?
19:26Certainly. I'll be only too glad to.
19:28We hear from a prisoner who, if you look closely,
19:31looks every bit of the terrifying convict.
19:33You've read in the papers about the porridge.
19:36It said that the mutiny was caused
19:38by no sugar being given with the porridge.
19:41And the main trouble about the porridge is this.
19:44It is placed in a store which is stamped with a result
19:48that it is mouldy.
19:50Dartmoor is the terriblest and dampest place
19:53that I have ever been in in my life.
19:56He's never been in a prison that was so damp.
19:58The food was terrible. Talks about sugar in the porridge.
20:01But what he's actually telling us is it reached a stage
20:04where the conditions were so brutal that it exploded.
20:10There's a kind of spidey sense, you know,
20:13you get used to with your jailcraft
20:15when things just don't feel right.
20:17You might see an uptick in complaints.
20:19You know, it might be something to do with the food, for example.
20:24The Dartmoor mutiny was the first prison riot caught on camera.
20:28The footage shocked the nation
20:31and was shown in cinemas around the world.
20:34The riot was a major embarrassment to the government
20:37and an inquiry was launched immediately.
20:40An inquiry is now proceeding
20:42to establish the causes of the rebellion.
20:45And these are three of the principal members.
20:48Colonel Rogers, Mr Paterson and Major Morris,
20:52chief constable of Devonshire and an ex-governor of Dartmoor.
20:56So we've got Major Morris giving evidence to the inquiry.
20:59The man who, I'm told, was responsible for this rising
21:02was here when I was.
21:04Jackson became a little god on his admission.
21:07He would stop at nothing.
21:09But I found that he has to be dealt with very carefully.
21:12He is a leader of men and can instil fear into the other convicts.
21:16So Major Morris singles out one individual, Jackson.
21:21He's as foul as he is at starting it all.
21:26John Jackson was 39 at the time of the riot.
21:29He'd been in prison for much of his adult life,
21:32for a string of violent robberies and car thefts.
21:37You know, it's fascinating because he looks like a well-dressed,
21:41ordinary, pretty gentle person.
21:43He's certainly got a bit of charisma about him.
21:46But he's clearly a violent criminal, no doubt.
21:48And a gangster, really.
21:50There's an inquiry that's taking place here.
21:53It seems, on the one hand, that it's about this character called Jackson.
21:58On the other hand, there's a suggestion that at the heart of it,
22:01it's about prison conditions and food.
22:03What are they going to find?
22:05Is it prison conditions or is it just down to one bad egg?
22:10There are people who are simply oppositional
22:13in their reaction to being in prison,
22:15their intent in causing disturbances.
22:17They will draw in other people and they will manipulate situations.
22:21It only takes a certain element within that prison environment
22:25who have got the courage to stand up and say,
22:27no, I'm not having it.
22:28And once the spark is there, it will ignite the flame.
22:32Let the fuckers have it.
22:35In the days following the Dartmoor mutiny,
22:38there was wild speculation about its causes.
22:41Under pressure to find answers,
22:44the official inquiry made its conclusions public
22:47just five days after the riot.
22:50I've seen video, albeit grainy footage of a prisoner,
22:53describing why this took place.
22:55And he's pretty clear, he says it's all about prison conditions,
22:58especially the porridge, the food.
23:00Here is the official inquiry.
23:02This is a medical officer who's questioned,
23:05did you think the porridge was a grievance?
23:07I think it was a grievance,
23:09but I don't think it was a cause of the outbreak.
23:12Did any men give you warnings?
23:14Yes, I heard there was going to be trouble, but nothing definite.
23:18In prison, you have no control over what your diet is.
23:21It becomes really important.
23:23But I think there are broader issues about prison conditions.
23:27Punishments are given out more freely.
23:31You could be flogged, still at that time.
23:34The accusations from convicts are that education has been reduced,
23:39that prison visiting has been reduced,
23:41that they've got longer time in cells,
23:44which is true because of the limited resources,
23:48due to economic problems in the country.
23:51We're in the middle of a depression.
23:53In the middle of the Great Depression.
23:55Bearing in mind lots of families couldn't feed themselves,
23:58the last thing they're going to spend money on is prisoners,
24:01I would have thought. Yeah.
24:02At the beginning, there's a perception,
24:04it's either the porridge or there's ringleaders at the heart of it,
24:07and most especially a person called John Jackson.
24:10Mm-hm.
24:11What does the inquiry conclude about him?
24:14I think they did make that decision,
24:16that he was at least one of the main ringleaders.
24:19A few of the convicts, including John Jackson, are put on trial.
24:24What happened in his trial?
24:26He's the only one of the Dartmoor defendants that defends himself.
24:30So this is kind of a rare glimpse.
24:33We get a sense of who he is.
24:37The inquiry ignored prison conditions
24:40and blamed the riot on a small group of violent criminals
24:43who were then put on trial.
24:45John Jackson used this as a platform
24:48to explain the prisoners' views to the public.
24:52This is a trial, ostensibly a straightforward trial,
24:55about whether or not Jackson started a riot
24:58and whether or not he burnt the prison down.
25:01And on the face of it, the evidence is very strong against him.
25:05What he wants to do is turn the trial
25:08not into an issue of riot or of arson,
25:12but about the prison conditions.
25:14What's fascinating is that he does deal with the key evidence against him.
25:18He's cross-examined the witnesses himself.
25:21I can tell you, having read it,
25:24that this is a man of not just significant intelligence,
25:30but of emotional depth and, above all else,
25:34a natural talent and flair for speaking for persuasion.
25:38Here we've got his final speech that he gives to the jury.
25:43This is such a moment.
25:46When we're sentenced to penal servitude,
25:49the object, the rightful object,
25:52is to segregate us from our fellow men.
25:55The rightful object.
25:57Understand that serious violent men need to be punished, including me.
26:02We were not sentenced to be deliberately badgered into insanity
26:07and killed with bad food.
26:09And when I say bad food, I don't mean distasteful food.
26:14I mean food unfit for human consumption.
26:18Pause.
26:2219 hours in the cells and the prison system,
26:25which makes it a crime for one convict to say good morning to another.
26:30Those are the things, gentlemen of the jury, that drive men to revolt
26:35against the tyranny which has been obtaining in Dartmoor Prison.
26:40Pause.
26:42But the jury was not convinced
26:44that Dartmoor's poor conditions excused the rioting.
26:48Jackson was found guilty
26:50and sentenced to a further six years inside.
26:54He gives us an account of life in Dartmoor.
26:57He's not railing against being a prisoner,
26:59he's railing against the conditions
27:02and explaining why, eventually, it will explode.
27:07You being sent to prison in the first place
27:09is already a punishment in itself.
27:11That is your punishment.
27:13Whilst you're in prison, it shouldn't be about punishment.
27:21In 1932, Dartmoor's prisoners saw rioting
27:25as a means of protest against tough conditions.
27:28But the subsequent government inquiry ignored their pleas for change.
27:34So if rioting doesn't make a difference,
27:36is it best for prisoners to keep their heads down,
27:39to try to survive life inside?
27:46There were other people there that day in the prison riot,
27:49the ones who complied,
27:51the ones that did their best to follow the system.
27:55And I've been doing some research
27:57and found someone called Ernest Collins.
28:00So he's convicted of larceny and he's there for four years.
28:04And he looks like a very sort of ordinary middle-aged man.
28:09At the time of the riot, Ernest Collins was a serial offender,
28:13with 18 convictions for violent assault and theft, going back 20 years.
28:19Here's his petition for early release.
28:22It talks about what Collins did on the day of the riot.
28:25He conducted himself in a quiet and orderly manner.
28:29And did what he could to assist.
28:32He says about a month after the mutiny,
28:35I was brutally assaulted on February 10th,
28:37being kicked in the head several times,
28:39and twice in the face, breaking my jaw,
28:41all because I was not in it, not in the mutiny.
28:44Jesus.
28:46This is really where I think it's interesting.
28:48I do really intend to lead a straight life
28:52and be a useful citizen.
28:54In other words, your long prison sentence
28:58in the horrors of Darkmoor have worked. Let me out.
29:05Ernest Collins' appeal was refused,
29:08and things soon got worse for him,
29:10after he tried and failed to escape.
29:13Collins was sentenced to three more years
29:16and a flogging with 12 lashes of the Cat O' Nine tails.
29:21As he waited to be whipped,
29:23he wrote a letter to his sister from his cell.
29:28It's no good complaining with this sentence hanging over me,
29:31so I don't say all I feel.
29:34God bless all those who have been kind to me.
29:37My sister Ada has got money for a funeral.
29:41The policeman in my head keeps lashing me every night.
29:45I cannot rest or sleep.
29:48I keep starting up, feeling the lash across my body.
29:52My mind's in agony.
29:56You know, it was the first note of this kind I'd read.
30:00It's not.
30:02It's a suicide note.
30:06What I've just turned over to is of no surprise whatsoever.
30:11At 1.30pm, the prisoner was found.
30:15The governor states that the fear of the flogging
30:18accounted for the act of suicide.
30:21That's what really sent him down that path to taking his own life.
30:28I don't know, I just feel angry reading this.
30:31I've read a number of people's last words.
30:34They all say the same thing.
30:37They've lost hope.
30:43What is clear is that there are two choices for you in Dartmoor.
30:47One is you fight against the system,
30:49one is you comply.
30:51Either way, it's pretty hopeless, right?
30:57The years do take its toll.
30:59And I've seen people where it grinds them down, wears them down mentally.
31:03People do tend to take their own lives in prison.
31:06They can't handle it.
31:08If you didn't go into prison with mental health issues,
31:11you're definitely coming out with them.
31:13I've been, unfortunately, in a position where I've walked into cells
31:16where people have decided to end their life
31:18and have, in fact, killed themselves.
31:20And it's something that stays with you forever.
31:23And that sense of failure actually stays with you forever.
31:27Colin's suicide was taken up by prison reformers
31:31to highlight the conditions inside Dartmoor
31:34and the brutality of flogging prisoners.
31:37But the practice of whipping continued until 1948.
31:42In the decades that followed, Dartmoor's brutal reputation worsened.
31:46A half-hour fight in the mailbag room of Dartmoor Prison this afternoon
31:50resulted in five prison officers being injured.
31:53Shears, razor blades and knives were used by the prisoners.
31:57With unrest and escape attempts every year.
32:00Many of the people who live on the moor went to bed
32:03haunted by the vision of a madman fleeing across it,
32:06waving an axe above his head.
32:08Three prisoners ran around the back and jumped in the cab
32:11and then they drove it up the main road across the double doors.
32:15As conditions continued to decline,
32:18there were repeated calls to close Dartmoor for good.
32:22Part of this building is ancient, it's decrepit, it's, in part, decaying.
32:29These buildings are all Victorian.
32:32Can you imagine the vermin, the rats, the cockroaches, the mice?
32:36The food is disgusting and you're confined in that cell sometimes 24-7.
32:42And it was inevitable, whether it be Strangeways, Dartmoor, Birmingham, Leicester,
32:47you know, one of these prisons was going to go up eventually.
32:58The whole jail should have been condemned a long time ago.
33:02The cells were damp and when the fog comes in,
33:05it literally rolls in and you can have a small layer of fog
33:09in your cell in the morning.
33:12That's how bad this place is.
33:14You're not going to get any visits because it's far out of the way
33:18and that was the big thing.
33:21Before they put proper toilets in the cells,
33:24you're let out of your cell to slop out,
33:28where you can empty your human waste.
33:31It was disgusting.
33:34By 1990, conditions at Dartmoor had reached boiling point
33:38and the prison looked set to erupt once again.
33:42About 100 prisoners at Dartmoor Prison in Devon
33:45have taken over one wing of the jail
33:47and up to a dozen of them have climbed up on the roof of another wing.
33:51They began hammering at the roof
33:53and throwing bits they'd managed to prise away down into the yard below.
33:58The riot at Dartmoor in April 1990 was not an isolated incident,
34:03but part of a series of disturbances at prisons all across the country.
34:08Throughout the day, prisoners have appeared on the roof of C Block
34:12for short periods to cause more damage
34:14and to erect banners airing their grievances.
34:17The complaints were the same in every prison.
34:20Poor sanitation, bad food, overcrowding and staff brutality.
34:26A message scrawled on a sheet said,
34:28''Strange ways, we're with you.
34:30''Whatever the outcome of the trouble at Dartmoor,
34:33''it will have surprised no-one in the prison service.''
34:38The Dartmoor riot seemed almost inevitable,
34:41a case of history repeating itself.
34:44But were the warning signs there for those working in the prison at the time?
34:49And what was it like to be caught up in the violence?
34:56So I've got the name of a prison officer
34:58who was there at the 1990 prison riot, Lynn,
35:01and she's agreed to meet me at her home, which is just across the moor.
35:08Lynn was one of Dartmoor's first female officers,
35:11just two years into her job, on the eve of the riot.
35:15You know, Lynn, there's a version of Dartmoor up to 1990
35:21of it being a place of real brutality.
35:25And especially for prisoners.
35:28Can you help me give a version of events?
35:30What was the place like for prisoners and staff?
35:34In the morning, they were woken up, doors were open,
35:37but we had slopping out in those days.
35:40There was no toilet sanitation in cells, so they...
35:43What was the smell like in the morning?
35:45Awful. Absolutely terrible.
35:47How many to a cell?
35:48In those days, one.
35:49I think it's far better than the way they've got it crammed full now,
35:52with two to a cell, because those cells are tiny.
35:55What was prison discipline like in Dartmoor?
35:58I think it was fair.
36:01I think there were some times when it was a bit over the top.
36:05They need punishment, don't get me wrong,
36:08because we had a lot of lifers in those days.
36:11A lot of long-term prisoners, so murderers, so on and so forth.
36:14And some crimes I really find horrendous.
36:18Dartmoor is in the middle of a moor.
36:21Miles away from people's families,
36:23and that feels like another element of the punishment.
36:26That is the biggest punishment of all to most of the prisoners.
36:29By transferring him to Dartmoor was another punishment
36:32on top of the original punishment,
36:34because he was so far away from their relatives to get visits.
36:381990.
36:40Yes.
36:41Come to work.
36:43It's an ordinary day.
36:45There's an atmosphere.
36:47I can't explain it exactly, but...
36:51..you can feel something wrong.
36:53On the Friday, we'd emptied the mailboxes, which are on Landon's.
36:58One letter was directed to me,
37:00warning me there was something going to happen.
37:02It just said, please miss, watch your back.
37:05Anyhow, on the Saturday, I was getting ready to lock them up,
37:08and it didn't work. It just suddenly...
37:13..everything went chaotic.
37:16There were screams and shouts,
37:18and there were inmates running around with pillowcases on their heads
37:22with eyelets cut out of them.
37:25And that was it.
37:27You saw the debris and everything all over the place.
37:30Chairs, doors came off.
37:32Were you afraid for yourself?
37:34No, it didn't cross my mind.
37:36Adrenaline had kicked in, and I actually managed to talk 20...
37:40I think it was 26 or 27 of them to come out with me.
37:43I just said, come on, don't be stupid, get out.
37:45You don't want to serve any extra time.
37:47You want to go home to your family.
37:49My fellow officers pulled me away and locked the door,
37:52and that's when we lost it completely.
37:58After we got everybody out, and the last one off the roof,
38:03we brought him down on a cherry picker.
38:05Once the doors were opened and we actually saw it, it was condemned.
38:09What's your reaction?
38:11It was like a bombsite.
38:15There was no actual injuries to inmates, as far as I know,
38:19apart from the one we lost.
38:21What do you mean, the one you lost?
38:23There was one prisoner that died.
38:25We were outside when we heard screams,
38:29and he was locked in his cell, and that was that vital.
38:32The screaming didn't last very long, it was only short.
38:36You just couldn't get near him, it was just impossible.
38:39The official line was it was an accidental death,
38:42but I think several of us didn't believe that.
38:45The message had gone round that he was a grass
38:48and that there was retaliation against him.
38:51And I believe he was pushed into his cell,
38:54the cell was set fire to, and the door was locked.
38:58It's just one of the worst memories of my prison career.
39:03To have a death, no, that's wrong, absolutely terrible.
39:08As far as prisoners were concerned who were ripping up the place,
39:11their point is this isn't a modern prison, this is brutal in there.
39:15Well, I didn't think it was. I mean, I really didn't.
39:18I honestly didn't.
39:24The 1990 riot, just like the 1932 one, isn't caused by one thing.
39:29You know, there are bad people, undoubtedly, that are motivated
39:32by other riots happening up and down the country,
39:35but also the conditions in the prison.
39:39You know, the riot was a catastrophic moment for prisons like Dartmoor,
39:43but did it really change in any meaningful way?
39:59In 1990, riots broke out here in Dartmoor
40:03and across other UK prisons.
40:06It was a turning point for British prison policy,
40:10because a government inquiry put the blame not on prisoners,
40:14but on the prison system itself.
40:17A radical shake-up of the prison system
40:20has been recommended by Lord Justice Wolfe,
40:23an end to slopping out in prison cells, eliminating overcrowding
40:27and establishing local community jails for closer family links.
40:3130 pages of the report relating specifically to the Devon jail
40:35paint a picture of grim conditions, poor treatment and a lack of trust.
40:41This, the report says, should be Dartmoor's last chance.
40:46We need to change.
40:48And that only came about not necessarily because of the riots,
40:52the demonstration, but because it went worldwide.
40:56It embarrassed the government. Now they are being exposed.
41:00They are doing things in a naughty way, to put it bluntly.
41:06Following the 1990 riot, Dartmoor underwent extensive refurbishment
41:11aimed at improving security and conditions.
41:16I've invited Lennox, an inmate at Dartmoor after the riots,
41:20to meet me to discuss his own prison experience.
41:24Is this your first time seeing Dartmoor?
41:27Yeah, first time since the 90s, being back.
41:32It's still very scary looking.
41:35Needs a paint job.
41:37There was a riot here in the 90s,
41:40and there were various recommendations,
41:43including more staff, better conditions.
41:46Did you see any of that?
41:48No. I didn't see any changes.
41:51You had no toilet in your cell, so you did all your business in a bucket.
41:56In the cells, the condensation,
42:00it just wets your clothes, wets everything.
42:03You'd get the Dartmoor stare because there was a lot of knife crime
42:08and people walked with their backs to the walls.
42:12It was just a horrible place.
42:16Leading up to being in prison, what had you done?
42:20I'd done a lot of violence.
42:22I was an enforcer for one gang, a drug-dealing gang.
42:26So what were you convicted for?
42:28Initially, it was attempted murder.
42:30I would say I was a very violent, evil person.
42:34You'd say evil? Yeah.
42:37What do you feel when you look at it now?
42:40I feel free.
42:42I feel happy to be on this side of the fence.
42:45I think the experiences helped to make me a better person.
42:50Wow.
42:52Some might say, well, it worked, the horror in there, that brutality.
42:56It forced you to reflect.
42:58Dartmoor, for me, at the time, it triggered off something
43:02and I wanted to change.
43:04I wanted something better.
43:06Sometimes you're in your cell, you're in a cell,
43:10Sometimes you're in your cell 24 hours.
43:13You've got time to think.
43:15I was tormented, I was carrying a lot of trauma.
43:20It made me think about my life.
43:23I felt something inside me say,
43:26you need to let it all go.
43:30But what's the point of long-term prison
43:32if I were to put you in charge of the prison service tomorrow, Lennox?
43:36What would you do?
43:39Long-term, for some people, is needed because you need time
43:45and you need a massive injection of cash.
43:48There's not enough money being invested into therapy.
43:53Do you think people want to spend money on prisoners?
43:56No.
43:58Because it's personal.
44:00And I think the victims think, well, sod them.
44:03They've hurt me and my family.
44:07Do you understand that?
44:09Absolutely.
44:11If...
44:13If I was the victim of me, I would have the same view.
44:19Since Lennox left Dartmoor,
44:21the UK prison system has become more stretched than ever.
44:25When the prison opened in 1850,
44:28there were 27,000 prisoners behind bars.
44:31Now there are more than 90,000.
44:35This is far from the norm.
44:37And here in Devon, one in seven prisoners
44:40share cramped one-man cells.
44:46Looking back at Dartmoor's long, often dark history
44:50raises questions about what prison is intended for.
44:55In the simplest way, Dartmoor makes sense.
44:58If you believe that if you commit an offence,
45:02you should be sent somewhere like that.
45:04And it should be brutal.
45:07On the other hand, we know the outcome of what happens,
45:11not because of today, but by looking at the past.
45:14Dartmoor's story is often shocking.
45:17Cases like Joseph Denny,
45:19who broke back into prison to take revenge on the guard
45:22he believed had mistreated him.
45:25Or Ernest Collins, who felt compelled to take his own life.
45:30And over the years, the many inmates who've turned to violence.
45:34Men that will, at some stage, be released.
45:38Those men are going to come back out into society.
45:42And what then?
45:46What happens inside matters.
45:55Next time, I visit Shrewsbury Prison in Shropshire.
46:00For some who walk through that gate, they'll never walk out again.
46:03It's here the careers of Britain's most infamous hangmen began.
46:08I've done more executions than anybody, I think, in the bloody world.
46:12Within these walls, many prisoners paid the ultimate price for their crimes.
46:17It's quite clear this is a case of cold-blooded murder.
46:21I think I need a drink.
46:30I think I need a drink.