Vic prison rioters will be charged: police

Police are sifting through video of riots at a Melbourne remand centre and say prisoners who were involved will face criminal charges.

Police block off traffic outside Ravenhall Prison, where inmates are rioting over a smoking ban that takes place tomorrow in Melbourne on Tuesday,June 30, 2015. (AAP Image/Mal Fairclough)

Police block off traffic outside Ravenhall Prison, where inmates are rioting over a smoking ban that takes place tomorrow in Melbourne on Tuesday,June 30, 2015. (AAP Image/Mal Fairclough) Source: AAP

A Melbourne remand centre remains in lockdown after a 15-hour riot as the state government maintains it will not lift a smoking ban that sparked the violence.

Three prison guards and a police officer were injured after prisoners overran the Metropolitan Remand Centre at Ravenhall, lighting fires and causing millions of dollars worth of damage.

Six prisoners were also hospitalised, including two bitten by dogs and one with a suspected broken jaw.

Premier Daniel Andrews says the smoking ban, which has been phased in across all Victorian prisons since February, will not be changed.

"You don't reward this sort of appalling behaviour by bringing about policy changes," he said on Wednesday.

Corrections Victoria says the prison suffered substantial damage and will remain locked down, as are all prisons in the state, until it is safe to resume normal operations.

"Yesterday's events were totally unacceptable and we will learn from this incident," a spokesperson said.

Charges will be laid over the riots, and Victoria Police are reviewing footage to identify prisoners who were involved.

"We'll continue to do investigations and hold those who caused the damage, and started the riot and maybe assaulted other people, accountable," Victoria Police Assistant Commissioner Stephen Leane told reporters.

Maintenance crews were assessing damage to doors, windows and fences that were smashed by prisoners, including some who used sticks and iron bars taken from agricultural sheds in the prison complex.

The repair bill will be footed by taxpayers and is expected to be in the millions.

Effects of the riot spread to Melbourne's courts on Wednesday where matters were delayed because inmates were not transported from the remand centre.

One lawyer told the Melbourne Magistrates Court he wanted Corrections Victoria to pay $1800 in costs because his client had not been able to appear.

Magistrate Ross Maxted said he expected other applications to follow after hearing Corrections Commissioner Jan Shuard on radio saying they could not manage to bring prisoners to court from the remand centre.

The riots broke out just after midday on Tuesday and were finally quelled by riot police in body armour and armed with high-powered rifles and tear gas finally in the early hours of Wednesday.

Internal fences were torn down and fires were started inside the centre during the riot, while cell fires also broke out at the nearby maximum security Port Phillip Prison and Dame Phyllis Frost women's prison.

Police say many of the inmates voluntarily returned to their cells when police issued an order over the prison's PA system.

Late on Wednesday, Victoria Police announced detectives from crime command and around the state would form taskforce Gallium to investigate the riot, one of the largest examples of prison unrest in Victoria's history.


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Source: AAP


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