“THE time has come for a long, hard look at prisons in Scotland, Barlinnie in particular, following this unfortunate episode.” Thus Glasgow MP Hugh Brown, on January 12, 1987, referring to a siege at Barlinnie’s B Hall in which three prison officers had been taken hostage. It was the latest in a series of disturbances at Scottish prisons, with major riots having occurred at Saughton, Edinburgh, and at Peterhead, where a prison warden and more than 40 inmates had been held hostage in a four-day siege in November 1986 that had ended in a blaze that caused £500,000 worth of damage.

The Barlinnie incident began in the early hours of January 6 after a day of minor incidents. This paper reported that prisoners had thrown slates from the roof and made allegations of brutality at the jail. The siege attracted considerable media attention and prisoners with their faces masked appeared on the roof of Hall B. A Herald photographer was struck on the foot when the rioting prisoners threw stones and slates at members of the media. Many prison officers had also suffered injuries from flying slates, bottles and other debris.

Scottish Home Affairs Minister Ian Lang defended the Scottish penal system, saying that much was being done to rehabilitate prisoners. He denied that Hall B was overcrowded and said that any prisoner alleging brutality could have complaints looked into by the police or procurator fiscal.

On day two, when eight of the 24 protesters gave themselves up, prison authorities cut off the inmates’ contact with the outside world so as to focus their attention on the negotiators.

The deadlock was broken on day three, when one of the three prison officers was released in return for food, and an inmate gave himself up. Strathclyde police and the Glasgow fiscal’s office said they were probing allegations and counter-allegations of assault at the beginning of the siege.

MP Hugh Brown visited the jail and said that an alleged assault on a certain prisoner had not been the main reason for the siege; Barlinnie, he pointed out, had 300 long-term prisoners, and it was 16 of them who were on the roof. “No specific demands have been made,” he added.

On Friday, day 4, one of the two remaining officers was freed as a “gesture of goodwill”, and the third was released after hot food was sent in. Four of the prisoners gave themselves up. The siege had by now become the longest of its kind in Scottish prison history.

Scottish Secretary Malcolm Rifkind said that of the 5,000 people in Scottish prisons, only about 50 had been involved in recent trouble.

By Sunday January 11, the siege was over, and the ravaged B Hall was being cleaned up.

The Scottish Prison Officers’ Association repeated its urgent calls for action on overcrowding and understaffing.

Trouble broke out at other Scottish prisons later that year, including Shotts, Perth and Peterhead. A siege at the latter was ended when an elite SAS unit stormed the building.

Read more: Herald Diary