'Gladiator' inmates probe

PRISON officers at a young offenders institution where an Asian teenager was beaten to death were at the centre of an investigation today after claims that they laid bets on Gladiator-style fights between black and white inmates. The allegations come in the week that a public inquiry was opened into the death of 19-year-old Zahid Mubarek, who was bludgeoned with a table leg by his racist cell-mate, Robert Stewart, 20, from Hattersley, near Hyde. Mubarek died of brain damage a week after he was battered into a coma with a wooden table leg at Feltham Young Offenders Institution in March, 2000. Skinhead Stewart, who had spent most of the previous three years in prisons, was jailed for life in October, 2001, for the murder.