Shocking state of prisons means 'one in 10 should be closed down'

Ageing inner-city jails are overcrowded and barely fit for purpose - watchdog

- Rajeev Syal

One in 10 prisons in England and Wales are barely fit for purpose and should be shut down if alternative buildings can be found, the official watchdog has said. Charlie Taylor, the chief inspector of prisons, told the Guardian that about 14 Victorian jails were so poorly designed, overcrowded and ill-equipped that they could not provide proper accommodation for inmates.

They include HMPS Wandsworth, Pentonville, Liverpool, Leicester, Lewes, Exeter, Bristol and Leeds, where prison officers were struggling to make the best of bad conditions.

As a result, thousands of prisoners were being held in vermin-infested buildings with too few staff and inadequate facilities for retraining and education, Taylor said.

Taylor's comments come amid intense scrutiny of the 135 adult and youth prisons in England and Wales after the high-profile alleged escape of Daniel Khalife, a 21-year old former soldier awaiting trial on terror charges.

They also follow the Guardian's disclosure that a German court refused to extradite a man accused of drug trafficking because of concerns about jail conditions in Britain.

Khalife, who is now back behind bars and has pleaded not guilty to escaping, went missing on 6 September from HMP Wandsworth in south London, which was given the lowest score - "of serious concern" - in HM Prison and Probation Service performance ratings this summer.

The jail is overrun with rats and suffers from a severe staff shortage and a high number of untrained or ill workers.

In his first interview since being reappointed as the prisons' watchdog yesterday, Taylor said the conditions in Wandsworth were particularly poor, but were part of a pattern in inner-city jails built more than 100 years ago.