A prisoner staged a six-and-a-half-hour protest in the rafters of HMP Perth because he was fed up getting served tuna for lunch.
Fussy Graham Evans complained he was “starving” after being offered a fish meal every second day.
The inmate, who was on a Kosher diet but does not like fish, clambered up into the roof space of the jail’s B-hall in protest.
He stayed there throughout the night, throwing chunks of plasterboard onto the floor and causing hundreds of pounds worth of damage.
Negotiators were scrambled to talk Evans down, while other inmates were secured in their cells.
The demonstration began at around 8.30pm on July 5, 2019 and continued until 3am the next day.
The 43-year-old eventually agreed to climb down when jail staff brought him a ladder.
Evans, of Queensferry Road, Rosyth, appeared at Perth Sheriff Court on Monday and admitted a charge of malicious mischief.
He tendered a guilty plea midway through his trial.
He took with him ‘a big bottle of juice’
Perth Prison officer Annette McGarvie said she was called at home to come in and help with negotiations.
“The roof at B-hall is quite high and I could see him sitting on one of the crossbars,” she told the court.
“He was picking at a hole in the plaster of the ceiling and it fell away.”
Ms McGarvie, 42, added: “He just kept picking at it.
“He made a hole in the ceiling and it was getting significantly bigger.”
She said: “He had taken a bag of provisions with him and he had a big bottle of juice.
“I wondered if he would need to come down and use the toilet but he didn’t.”
Asked why Evans was up in the rafters, Ms McGarvie said: “It was to do with his Kosher diet.
“He had been served a lot of fish, and he doesn’t like fish.
“And he didn’t like the way that his complaints had been dealt with.”
The court heard the Scottish Prison Service spent nearly £400 repairing the damage.
More cash was spent installing “climbing restrictors” to prevent other inmates from trying the same thing.
‘Hungrier and hungrier’
Solicitor David Holmes, defending, said his client was “effectively starving in the prison because he didn’t like fish.”
The court heard he was served only tuna and cheese on alternate lunchtimes.
Mr Holmes said: “Mr Evans was studying the Jewish faith at the time and had asked for a diet consistent with that.
“He was served tuna every second day.
“But he won’t eat fish, he just doesn’t like it.
“But no matter who he asked about this, he always got the same response.
“He was getting hungrier and hungrier and more and more upset.
“He felt that people weren’t taking him seriously and said that day that he would go up into the roof space unless something was done.
“Obviously, things got out of hand.”
Earlier, dirtier protest
Evans, who was released two weeks after his protest, has stayed out of trouble since, the court heard.
Sheriff Gillian Wade deferred sentence until February 24 for background reports.
Evan was released on bail.
He was jailed for four months in May 2019, after he painted a sign on his door that stated: “Islam is questionable”.
He then carried out a dirty protest in his cell at Dunfermline police station.
Evans was originally charged with breach of the peace over the sign but was found not guilty after trial.
He was, however, jailed for the in-cell protest, in which he smeared excrement over the walls.
