There is little doubt that had the British simply embraced Hilditch’s plan of giving the prisoners both their own clothes and some prison-issue clothing, everything that happened next, and all the deaths it entailed, could have been avoided. Instead, on 23 January 1981, the prison authorities refused to issue their own clothes to the prisoners who had been co-operating with them. Those prisoners, who were now in clean cells, smashed up the new furniture they had been given. The cycle of violence within the prison began again, with the more brutal warders beating prisoners in retaliation.
