Regardless of legal processes, a substantial element of the prison population believed that they were vulnerable to the consequences of irresponsible drug administration. A combination of unhealthy drug dosages and bad diet presumably lay at the heart of the Blood Transfusion Service policy of rejecting donations offered by inmates of Wormwood Scrubs.11 The Gartree allegation touched a raw nerve on 5 October 1978, and Dr. Whitehead restated his opinion that the prison was a location where Largactil and other powerful drugs were routinely used to pacify inmates. Former prisoner George Coggan of PROP averred that the concerns raised related to the ‘use [of drugs] that cannot be countenanced as medical’.12 Paul Hill was shocked at the sight of ‘mad’ prisoners under Dr. Cooper’s care in Parkhurst:
They can have Largactyl, Mogadon, Triptosal – as much of it as they want. The screws take a little plastic cup and mix up the drugs like a cocktail. They ask you if there is anything else you want. They will not let you have tobacco, fresh fruit, vegetables, but you can have as many of their drugs as you like. The men on F2 stagger about all day out of their heads. Cooper’s Troopers have knives and shifts [i.e. ‘chivs’] and there is violence. The screws are happy to let it continue – it gives them an excuse for the wing’s existence.13
The Home Office insisted that normal National Health Service ‘conditions’ pertained in all prisons, although the lack of independent oversight rendered this defence incredible to informed observers.14 Dr. C H McCleery, ex-Medical Officer in Parkhurst, created a sensation in October 1978 when his ‘Treatment of psychopaths with Dexipol’ appeared in the restricted publication Prison Medical Journal. Dr. McCleery admitted that persons ‘regarded purely as Albany discipline failures’ were given combinations of Mogadon, Tranxene, Lentizol and Valium. Numbers were transferred to the Parkhurst Prison Hospital where six medically fit persons were injected after ‘a lot of persuasion’ with the anti-schizophrenia drug Dexipol.15 The precise purpose of this procedure was open to question and it was noted that the Danish pharmaceutical was ‘not a tranquiliser’.16 The Home Office was exceptionally well situated to shield itself from unwanted investigation, it was not until October 1983 that Dr. John L Kilgour, formerly of the Royal Army Medical Corps, Parachute Field Ambulance and World Health Organization, became the first Director of Prison Medical Services appointed from outside the body.17
Although more general prisoner concerns were clearly in play, the Gartree riot was sparked by fears for the welfare of 22-year-old Michael Blake who, on 5 October 1978, was forcibly given tranquilizing drugs before being
taken to the prison infirmary. Three prisoners were granted access to check on his condition and it was later claimed that trouble flared ‘during or shortly after that visit’.18 When Martin Brady saw Blake: ‘He was bouncing off the walls … he was full of drugs and he was only a young kid – doing six years or something. That was what the riot was over – the abuse of drugs’.19 Ronnie McCartney concurred that Blake had been ‘drugged up by the doctor’.20 John McCluskey was approached just after being unlocked by a prisoner who claimed his friend had been ‘taken to the hospital and he’s been drugged’. Several concerned prisoners then congregated outside the ground floor office on A Wing to request a meeting with the Governor. The Principal Officer made repeated phone contact with the Governor at ten to fifteen minute intervals and inaccurately reported his imminent arrival at least twice. An exasperated black prisoner intervened with a threat: ‘We’ll give you another ten minutes and then if something doesn’t happen we’ve got to take some action’.21 Republicans regarded what happened next in hindsight as ‘a good bit of solidarity with the blacks’.22 McCluskey noted:
The ten minutes passed by and the riot just started and the prisoners started smashing up. Of course there was nothing else they could do. Everything was smashed up. The screws in the office ran out and left all their mates behind. So the screws on the landing were barricaded in. They were very frightened. Some time later we decided that as the protest wasn’t against the screws we’d have to take part of the barricade down and get the screws out, which we did. None of them were harmed in any way. The funny thing was that while the riot was going on they released Blake out of the hospital. If only the screws had done this at
6 p.m. or even at 7 p.m. there wouldn’t have been a riot. We held the wing and kept the screws out.23
Official accounts were less explicit. A and D wings were seized by prisoners at 7.30 p.m. who then blocked the entranceways to the sector with makeshift barricades to hinder their reoccupation by the staff. Rioters gained control of B wing where the audible commotion and word of its causation had been relayed. Heavy cell doors were levered off their hinges, plumbing mangled and the expensive heating system totally destroyed.24 By 9.25 only C Wing was under staff control and the future of Gartree within the Dispersal System was in doubt.25 Eddie O’Neill, heavily guarded due to his ‘E List’ classification, lamented: ‘We could only get five people that would do anything on that wing’.26 Records seized from offices, including the ‘Incident Book’, furnished prisoners with information that aggravated the situation. Notes regarding the importance of destroying his relationship with his fiancée incensed McCartney. He found it necessary to protect a Loyalist prisoner from retribution from Liverpool men who disapproved of incriminating details which came to light.27
Serious fighting between approximately eighty-six prisoners and a reinforced complement of staff were brought in. It proved impossible to access the roof where structural levels of damage could have been achieved. Yet, prison officers wearing protective riot gear were attacked with hot water and petrol bombs. Their visible garb probably encouraged attacks by volatile cliques who did not seriously intend to main or kill. Paul Hill recalled: ‘We toss the petrol bombs at them. Their shields catch