Inquiry launched into rooftop protest

The prisoner stayed on the roof of the jail for 18 hours

Exeter Prison has begun an inquiry into how an inmate was able to climb onto the roof of the jail.

The 27-year-old prisoner came down off the roof at about 0430 BST on Wednesday after 18 eighteen hours outside.

Prison governor Ian Mulholland said the inmate's protest was about the conditions under which he had been held since being remanded there from Launceston Magistrates Court a few days earlier.

The inquiry will look into the reason for the protest and the breach of security.

Mr Mulholland said: "We will be conducting a review of security locally to look at how we can avoid a recurrence of this in the future.

The prisoner is now being kept in the segregation unit

"However, in this particular instance, he was a particularly agile individual.

"We had looked at where potential climbing points could be around the prison, but this wasn't one of them, so we will have to look at that."

The prisoner started his protest on top of one of the Category B prison's three-storey wings at 1000 BST on Tuesday.

He walked along the ridge of one of the prison wings, around 50 feet off the ground.

Segregation unit

Two trained negotiators spent a number of hours trying to talk him down.

A Home Office spokesman said the prisoner was now being kept in the segregation unit at the prison.

The Prison Officers Association said it would not comment yet on the particular case.

But it said it had general concerns about overcrowding in prisons.