Watchdog issues urgent notification over state of ‘cramped and squalid’ Wandsworth prison

Security at Wandsworth prison is still a ‘serious concern’ despite the alleged escape of Daniel Khalife last year

Wandsworth prison must be put into emergency measures amid concerns over security failings and severe problems with overcrowding, drugs, violence and self-harm, a watchdog has said.

HM chief inspector of prisons Charlie Taylor has issued an urgent notification to the justice secretary, sounding the alarm on the “cramped, squalid conditions” inside the prison.

HMP Wandsworth was criticised last year after an inmate Daniel Khalife allegedly escaped prison by strapping himself to the underside of a food delivery vehicle with bedsheets.

Most staff at HMP Wandsworth are ‘very inexperienced’, the prisons inspector has said (PA)

Mr Taylor said that “security remained a serious concern”, adding: “Wings were chaotic and staff across most units could not accurately account for their prisoners during the working day.”

He slammed the poor leadership “at every level of the prison, from HMPPS and the Ministry of Justice” for contributing to the mounting failings. Mr Taylor said that unless experienced leaders are installed at the prison “the risk of a further catastrophe, a self-inflicted death or escape from lawful custody, is ever present”.

The inspector said that most staff at every level of the prison were “very inexperienced, and, despite being fully staffed on paper, over a third of operational staff weren’t available for work each day”.

Daniel Khalife, appearing at Westminster Magistrates' Court in central London, where he is charged with escaping while a prisoner at HMP Wandsworth while on remand pending a trial at the Old Bailey. (PA)

80 per cent of prisoners shared cells designed for one person and most men spent more than 22 hours a day confined “to these cramped, squalid conditions with no idea if or when they would leave them or have any access to fresh air”, Mr Taylor noted.

As a result prisoners had sunk to a “degree of despondency that I have not come across in my time as chief inspector”, he added.

Incidents of self-harm inside the prison are also high, but despite this around 40 per cent of emergency cell bells were not answered within the required five minutes.

Pia Sinha, chief executive of the Prison Reform Trust, said the chief inspector’s report “reveals a failure of leadership from top to bottom”. She added that ministers were “rapidly running out of effective options” to deal with emergencies in prisons, due to shrinking capacity in the prison estate.

She added: “Previously, the first thing a prisons minister would consider was to rapidly decant a large number of people from the prison to give staff much needed breathing space to address concerns.

“But with prisons in the midst of a capacity crisis, there is simply no give in the system to do this.”

In response to the findings, prisons minister Edward Argar said: “This is a deeply concerning report which shows HMP Wandsworth continues to face significant challenges and it is clear that on top of the additional support we’ve already provided since September to improve safety and security, including nearly £1m of upgrades, we need to go further still.”