1990 Strangeways Prison riot administrative offices on the lower floor and the chapel on the upper floor. Remand prisoners were held in wings G, H, I and K of a separate prison, linked to the main prison through workshops and a kitchen. The Certified Normal Accommodation Figure for Strangeways, the number of prisoners the prison was designed to hold, was 970. The population of the prison had increased in the months before the riot, from 1,417 in January 1990 to a peak of 1,658 on 27 March. On 1 April, the prison contained 1,647 prisoners – about 925 convicted adult prisoners, 500 remand prisoners
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,