There are re­ports of some sort of dis­tur­bance at the Max­i­mum Se­cu­ri­ty Prison in Arou­ca.

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that six high risk pris­on­ers have bar­ri­cad­ed them­selves in a cou­ple cells to protest con­di­tions in the prison sys­tem.

Sources told us that ne­go­tia­tors have been sent in to speak with them.

The Pris­ons Com­mis­sion­er re­port­ed­ly has height­ened se­cu­ri­ty around the prison it­self.

Vir­tu­al hear­ings sched­uled for to­day had to be aban­doned due to the cur­rent lock­down in­sti­tut­ed be­cause of the dis­tur­bance. Many hear­ings orig­i­nal­ly card­ed for to­day are now be­ing resched­uled.

To­day's events come on the heels of the un­earthing of an al­leged plot for a ma­jor prison break, with a large cache of weapons found at the prison grounds last month.

C-4 ex­plo­sives and three firearms were found buried out­side the Max­i­mum Se­cu­ri­ty Prison in Arou­ca by of­fi­cers of the Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Re­sponse Team (SORT) and the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Group (NSSOG) in the ear­ly hours of Thurs­day 24 June 2021.

Guardian Me­dia will pro­vide de­tails as they come to hand.