White Collar Criminals Riot in Britain

Inmates at one of Britain's cushiest prisons didn't take kindly to staff trying to clamp down on New Year's Eve boozing. Around 40 inmates at Ford Open Prison mutinied shortly after midnight when staff ordered them to undergo breathalyzer tests for contraband alcohol, the Telegraph reports. Guards were forced to abandon the prison as prisoners smashed furniture and set fires.

Riot police eventually regained control of the prison, but not before fires severely damaged eight buildings. A gym, a snooker room and a pool room with 10 new pool tables were destroyed. "This has been waiting to happen," a spokesman for the Prison Officers Association said, noting that dozens of empty liquor bottles had been found at the prison in recent days. Prison staff attempting to enforce breath tests had been chasing inmates around all week "like a scene out of Benny Hill," he said.
(More Britain stories.)