A PRISONER was taken away for questioning after the body of a 22-year-old was found by officers at the Glasgow jail at around 2am on Thursday.
NOTORIOUS Barlinnie prison was at the centre of a murder probe last night after a prisoner was found strangled in his cell.
The body of a 22-year-old sex offender was found by prison officers at the Glasgow jail at around 2am yesterday.
Detectives were called out to the scene and the dead prisoner’s cellmate taken away for questioning.
The prisoner was found in his cell in E Hall on the fourth floor of the jail.
Police confirmed they were treating the death a suspicious and a post mortem examination was being carried out.
An insider said: “All hell broke loose at the jail when they found his body in the middle of the night.
“It’s the first time there’s been a murder in prison for years.
“It’s a big deal and there will a lot of questions asked about how this could have happened.”
A Police Scotland spokeswoman said: “We received a report around 2.10am that the body of a 22 year-old-man was found within a cell in HMP Barlinnie.
“A post mortem will take place to establish the exact cause of death.
“However, at this time, it is being treated as suspicious.”
Getty Images Barlinnie has housed some of Scotland's most violent offenders
Police refused to release a name for the dead man.
The Scottish Prison Service confirmed there had been a death at the jail but refused to comment further.
While violence in Scottish jails happens on an almost daily basis ,murders are quite rare.
In 2006, Michael Cameron was battered to death in Kilmarnock jail.
Cameron, who was on remand facing a rape charge, was attacked by David Martin.
Martin, then 20, got 24 years for the killing.
Axe murderer William Toye, 36, was murdered in Perth Prison’s D Hall in September 1996. Toye, who hacked a man to death to stop him from testifying against his brother, was stabbed to death in a war over drugs.
Scores of prisoners have been injured in custody, many of them seriously.
Race hate killer Imran “Baldy” Shahid, 36, was battered last year in an attack in the gym in Kilmarnock Prison.
Self-portrait of alleged victim Colin Penrose in 2011.
John Clark appeared at Glasgow  on Friday charged with murdering cellmate Colin Penrose, 22, in the city's .

Penrose, from the West Coast town of , had been recalled to prison for alleged further offending after being paroled from a sentence for sexual assault against a teenager. Police Scotland confirmed they were called to the prison, Scotland's largest, shortly after 2:00am on Thursday when Penrose was found dead in the cell.

Clark has been remanded pending a full committal hearing next week. Clark is variously reported to be either 21 or 22.

Penrose died on the top floor of the jail's E Hall. E Hall includes accommodation for vulnerable prisoners.

Penrose, who attended , is survived by his parents, both 60. He listed himself on Facebook as single but had liked a dating page, and according to his profile was seeking employment. "I hate football and I hate the police", his profile reads, adding he enjoyed a drink at the weekend.

In early 2012 he uploaded a photo of himself with a swollen eye. Without explaining the injury he asked "does anybody want to say anything about my eyes in this picture or do you not give a shit what happens to me"? He received no response until a year later, when the reply "thats what happens to beasts

" was received.

Several friends posted condolences to his page after his death. One claimed he had been strangled.

The famous four-storey Victorian prison is routinely overcrowded, with prisoners sharing cells meant for individual use. With drug use at over 80% of the population, Barlinnie is Western Europe's largest dispenser of  substitute .
HMP Barlinnie from file.
In 2011 governor Derek McGill complained "If we could eliminate overcrowding, we could do more with the prisoners." He was speaking after an inspector branded the facility unsafe for prisoners and staff alike due to chronic overcrowding. Scottish Executive  spending cuts around the same time reduced the 's building funds significantly.

Plans are nonetheless afoot to replace Barlinnie with a new prison, to be called . The Prison Service is tendering for consultants to identify potential sites. Although the Scottish Government aims to reduce prisoner populations the new prison is to be more than twice the size of Barlinnie.

The nation's sex offenders were, until recently, usually all held at . The internationally-acclaimed sex offender treatment center was permanently closed late last year and the inmates moved elsewhere. Peterhead prison has been replaced with the 140 million "super prison" , built next door to the Peterhead site. Men, women, and young offenders are all held at the prison for the first time at a Scottish jail and the first inmates arrived this month.  has also closed and been replaced with the new jail. 

Homicide behind bars is unusual in Scotland, though there have been cases in 2006 and 1996. Neighbouring England has seen a spate recently, including four last year. Those four deaths were all charged as murder and represented the highest  total since 1998.


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