A PRISONER’S toothache could turn out to be one of the most expensive in history after it sparked a riot in a jail.

The Prison Service is facing a bill of tens of thousands of pounds for damage caused when inmates went on the rampage in a wing of Lewes jail in Sussex.

Computer equipment, windows and offices were destroyed during five hours of trouble that ended yesterday when riot-trained prison officers entered the wing. Up to 30 remand prisoners out of a total of 120 on the wing took part in the disturbances. One prison officer was treated in hospital for minor injuries.

Officers abandoned the wing for their own safety shortly after the disturbance broke out. It began when a prisoner returned to the wing and said that he had not been given a strong enough painkiller for a toothache.

Prison sources said the real issue was that many prisoners on the wing were undergoing detoxification and had been putting pressure on medical staff to give them stronger analgesics. “The prison staff have been taking a robust line over this issue,” a source said.

Charles Bushell, general secretary of the Prison Governors’ Association, said: “We believe that the determination of the staff at Lewes to deny prisoners access to illegal drugs and prevent the abuse of prescribing has caused some tension, which came to a head on Tuesday evening.”

The Prison Service began to estimate the cost of the damage yesterday, but said that no cells had been put out of use during the trouble. Seventeen inmates were transferred to other jails.

Andrew Darken, of the Prison Officers’ Association, said: “There is a problem (at Lewes) where young offenders are on the same wing as adult offenders and there is a real difference between youngsters and adults in a jail . . . Young offenders are a lot more volatile than adult prisoners.”

It is the second time in three days that serious trouble has broken out in a jail. Thirteen inmates were involved in an act of “concerted indiscipline” at High Down jail at Banstead in Surrey on Saturday.

• Malcolm Joyce, a former prison officer from Newcastle upon Tyne, won compensation of £3,500 from Marvin Pomfret, 24, an inmate who took him hostage at knifepoint during a 20-hour siege.

  Mr Joyce brought the landmark case on a “matter of principle” after he learnt that his attacker had won £75,000 damages from a council, arguing that they had failed to give him a suitable education.

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