Dancing protesters recreated DJ Casper’s 2000 hit Cha Cha Slide outside Strangeways prison as Stuart Horner’s one-man protest descended further into farce.
The 35-year-old, who is serving 27 years after being convicted of shooting his mother’s brother in 2012 climbed an 18ft metal fence to make his way onto the prison roof on Sunday afternoon.
Almost three days later he has batted away attempts to safely bring him down as he parades in front of press cameras, negotiators in riot gear and hundreds of onlookers.
Officers are staying at a distance in the fear that Horner could fall, and are waiting for the convict to give himself up.
On the evening of Monday 14 September a small group of protesters calling themselves the Party Protest Manchester arrived to set up a PA system playing music and encouraging chanting outside the prison walls.
Their protest has grown the longer Horner stays out of reach of prison officials, bringing crowds of people, some mothers holding young children, out into the street.
Shocking video from the scene after midnight on Wednesday 16 September shows children as young as 10 are among the crowds congregating in the road and dancing.
Police have had to draft in extra officers to manage the scene, setting up roadblocks on Southall Street outside the main gates, and closing roads in the area.
Men and women who appear to be drunk are walking into the road and dancing as police traffic officers divert traffic.
The atmosphere turned ugly towards the early hours of Wednesday morning with scuffles breaking out, eggs being thrown at police and officers on scene forced to break up trouble.
Horner has ignored every attempt to remove him from the roof, lounging around 80ft above the ground, occasionally smashing windows and CCTV cameras with a ripped-off metal pole.
The Prison Service said over 60 inmates have been transferred to other jails as a result of Horner’s vandalism, which has caused damage costing thousands of pounds.
When he first appeared on the prison roof at 3.30pm on Sunday Horner was wearing a pair of blue and yellow trousers, indicating he was an escape risk.
Initially he and other supporters within the prison yelled to reporters that inmates were “bring treated like animals” and were protesting living conditions.
His family, including his mother and father, and sister – taken up in a cherry picker to plead with him – have urged him to come down, insisting the protest “will achieve nothing”.
In 2011 HMP Manchester, known locally as Strangeways, became part of the ‘high security estate’, one of the eight UK prisons, which houses ‘Category A’ inmates deemed to pose the greatest potential risk.
The 35-year-old, from Benchill in Wythenshawe, was convicted of murder after he shot his uncle in a family feud.
There are rumours that the attempt could be causing unrest as the news spreads to other prisons across the country, largely via social media.
Southall Street, Sherborne Street and Empire Street remain closed.
