1990 Strangeways Prison riot with many excerpts from the letters being appended to the finished report. The "Woolf Report" was published on 25 February 1991, and blamed the loss of control of the prison on the prison officers abandoning the gates outside the chapel, which "effectively handed the prison to the prisoners". Woolf described the conditions inside Strangeways in the months leading up to the riot as "intolerable", and viewed a "combination of errors" by staff and management at the prison and Prison Service as a central contributing factor to the riot. He also blamed the failure of successive governments to "provide the resources
1990 Strangeways Prison riot glass. Nine men went on trial charged with riot under Section 1 of the Public Order Act 1986, with six of them, including Paul Taylor and Alan Lord, also being charged with the murder of Derek White. On the first day one prisoner pleaded guilty to charges of riot and conspiracy to riot, and was also acquitted of the murder charge. The other defendants were also acquitted of murder due to the unreliability of eyewitness testimony and the possibility that White had died from a pre-existing thrombotic condition. On 16 April, four defendants including Paul Taylor were convicted of rioting,