THE trial date has been set for several men who deny being part of a mutiny at a Worcestershire prison.

The 13 defendants in the case are all charged with mutiny at HMP Hewell. The majority were produced in person at Worcester Crown Court yesterday because of the challenges of conducting hearings involving so many defendants over the live videolink. The charge is that on July 22 last year the defendants ‘being detained in lawful custody while at HMP Hewell took part in a prison mutiny, engaging in conduct with one or more persons intending to further a common purpose of overthrowing lawful authority in that prison’.

The hearing took all morning and the early part of the afternoon, the accused having to be brought to court in smaller groups before entering their pleas.

One of the defendants, Sam Brown, who is on unconditional bail, is from Worcester. The rest were remanded in custody. Matthew Armstrong, 27, Rumia Delgado, 30, Zac Dillon, 24, Christopher Edwards, 31, Sam Brown, 33, Calvin Gill, 23, Timothy Murphy, 24, Thomas Rogers, 24, Liam Fields and Shay Taylor, 27, all denied the charge. Kieran Ballard, 29, and Grant Samed, 31, admitted prison mutiny and will be sentenced after the trial of the other defendants has concluded.

Keiko Marshall, 23, appeared over the videolink from HMP Featherstone in the afternoon. He has yet to enter a plea and is still seeking legal representation. A further hearing has been set down for him on July 27. The case was prosecuted by Stephen Thomas, also expected to be counsel in the trial. He told the judge the maximum sentence for a conviction for prison mutiny was 10 years.

The trial date was set down for January 22 and is likely to involve two back-to-back trials with around five or six defendants in each. The time estimate for the trials at this stage is five weeks (for both together). One judge would need to preside over both.

Judge Robert Juckes QC said it would be necessary to split the trials because of the number of holding cells downstairs and the number of prison officers required.

Aside from arraigning the defendants the bulk of the court's time was taken with timetabling relevant stages of the trial so it can proceed smoothly.

It is hoped that the court can be notified which witnesses are required within the next 14 days, helping to decide how the defendants will be divided between the two trials.

A pre-trial hearing is scheduled to take place on October 5.

The case is expected to include CCTV footage from the prison. This has to be served by July 24. Defence case statements must be submitted by August 23 and an opening note from the prosecution by September 21.