IN LESS THAN A YEAR before an insurrection at Glendairy Prisons, offences committed by inmates at Glendairy Prisons had more than doubled.

Senior Prison Officer John Lythcott, the facility's investigating officer, revealed this to a Commission of Inquiry yesterday.

Lythcott revealed that between April 2004 and March 2005, days before the riot at Glendairy on March 29 and 30, 2005, there had been 478 offences committed by inmates, which he investigated.

Those offences included seven acts of violence by Keimar "Bag Mouth" Payne, the man considered Glendairy's most violent inmate.

Another inmate at the centre of the insurrection, Adrian "Most Wanted" Jones, was reported for three incidents, whilst Errol Spooner, who has asked for special protection since testifying to the commission, was investigated for two offences of violence.

Lythcott said if inmates were found guilty of offences, they could be punished in a number of ways, including diet restriction, increased sentences or solitary confinement.

According to Lythcott's records, there were 122 inmate offences investigated in 2002, 193 the next year, and 221 in 2004.

The warder revealed that an investigation into Acting Superintendent Lieutenant-Colonel John Nurse being slapped by an inmate on March 29 had commenced, but was never completed because the inmate involved, Omar Moore, was released from prison.