We Asked a Notorious UK Prison Rioter About the Guy Protesting on the Roof of a Jail in Manchester

"Fuck your system," someone screamed, "fuck your rules!"

It was 1990. HMP Strangeways, Manchester's notoriously brutal jail, had finally come to the boil. Conditions were awful: three men to a single cell; bucket for a toilet; showers, exercise, and clean clothes all hard to come by; allegedly drunk and abusive guards ever ready to ignore complaints; violence from both inmates and staff.

On April 1, in the chapel, what should have been the riot to end all riots began. Prison officers were relieved of their keys; pews piled up for barricades. Alan Lord, a convicted murderer, scaled the roof and saw the forces of law and order running with their batons between their legs. The prison was theirs and for 25 glorious days they held onto it.

It threw the whole system into crisis. The public enquiry that followed—the Woolf Report—was meant to ensure such a situation never reoccurred. For a while, conditions improved.

For the last three days, Stuart Horner has been running around the roof of HMP Strangeways, smashing in windows and clowning around for the assembled press. The one-man riot has a crude message, daubed on a prison shirt:

"It's not 1990. Tell the Government we've all had enough. Sort the whole system."

Strangeways, it seems, has come full circle. We phoned up Alan Lord, the convicted murderer, seasoned rioter, and health freak who was integral to the original Strangeways protest, for a chat. He told us about his life back then, what he's up to now, and claimed that Horner is refusing to speak to anyone other that Alan Lord.

VICE: Hi Alan, what do you think of Stuart Horner who is currently protesting on the roof of Strangeways?
Alan Lord: At the moment, he's requested to talk to me only. His family got in contact with me on Facebook the day before yesterday. But it's not just as simple as that. I'm an ex-lifer on license and I'd be putting myself in a precarious situation; it could give the authorities the opportunity to haul me back in for inciting [to riot]. It's not going to happen. If he wants to talk to me he has to request it through the authorities and tell them, "I want to speak to Alan Lord only." I think in all fairness he's got to realize he's on his own. He's got the message out now. Other people are aware of it: organizations, dignitaries, the press, ex-prisoners, etcetera etcetera. So he's now opened the Pandora's Box again, which is good.

As for your own experience, when did you decide you were going to fight the system?
From day one. As they escorted me to the segregation unit and put me in my cell one of them punched me in the back of the head and said, "you murdering black bastard," then slammed the door. First I had the butterflies, I was a bit anxious, but then part of me said—if this is the way it's going to be, I'm not going to put my head between my legs, and the next time that door opened I came out fighting.

How did you stick it to the man?
Through pen on paper. Through fisticuffs. Through demonstrations. Through barricades. I've been in five prison riots in total—each one was completely different. They knew that I'd be willing to go toe-to-toe against the odds. I wasn't entirely comfortable with that but it was a necessity at the time.

For most of your 32 years in prison you refused to sleep in a bed—what was that about?
That was my own stance. For 18 months into my sentence I used to have all the comforts in the world—pictures on the wall, stereo system, etc—but I realized that anything you have in your cell is technically a "privilege." They could take it away from you tomorrow. I wanted it set in stone that I didn't want anything off the system, so they couldn't take anything away from me. And from that day on, I threw everything out and lived in an empty cell. I never had television, never had radio, never had comforts, never had a bed frame, no mattress. I slept on the floor. I done it my way.

The prison system is in crisis again. Cuts to education and staffing levels mean that many prisoners are locked up for almost 23 hours a day in overcrowded cells. Now there's a guy running around on a roof. Is it just waiting for the right spark to set it all off?
Absolutely. I'll live by that statement. I've been out for two years now but the fact is when I was approaching my release, there was still a lot of discontentment within the prison system. The people in authority are either ignorant of it or they're arrogant… and inevitably I can see that it is going to go up. If it comes, I think it'll come from one of the local prisons… Because that's where the impact of these changes is felt more than anywhere else… Eventually they'll go—you know what? Enough is enough.

The racial and physical abuse you suffered at the hands of the prison authorities was truly barbaric. You received beatings, were left in a body belt for days, forced to eat off the floor, and even held down so a prison officer could slice open your arm. Are things really that bad now ?
Let me tell you something about abuses in prison. I'll say this to anyone; I've got no bones about it. Abuses are still taking place within the prison system. Despite the denial by the prison service. They're always going to be in denial. The prison system is a law unto itself. They operate behind closed walls and don't answer to anybody. A lot of organizations exist to deal with prisoner's complaints but a lot of them are just ventilation systems. They don't really go out of their way to help you. If you think about it, throughout history it's always come down to prisoners to make a stand and make those changes. It's the prisoners who will have to take the hard stance—and take the consequences. After Strangeways, I had to walk the gauntlet.

How's your life these days?
Life is certainly fulfilling comparative to being locked away. I've got the opportunity to do what I want to do—within limits obviously.

You own a gym right?
The gym [AL's Gym, Radcliffe, Manchester] has been up and running for a year now and it's going great. The weight-lifting part of it is picking up more and more and more and more. The clientele I've got is fantastic—every evening it's practically full up.

Ever get any attitude?
None whatsoever. I'm upfront about my past with anyone that asks me but I've had no adverse comments or any kind of animosity towards me—or even raised eyebrows. The feedback I get from a lot of the clients is: Alan, you've done wrong, nobody's perfect, and also you were a young boy at the time and furthermore you paid your dues to society so good luck to you.

What's your message for the pissed off prisoners of today?
I know it's hard. I know it's difficult. But before taking the extreme path you should take a concerted effort to put pen to paper and expose the system that way. But if all else fails, what choice do you have? And if push comes to shove, and it comes down to that, prepare for the consequences. Don't kid yourself it'll be an easy ride because it won't.

Thanks Alan!

Alan's book, Life in Strangeways: From Riots to Redemption, My Thirty-Two Years Behind Bars , is available here.

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