A serving prison governor from one of the country’s crowded jails has spoken exclusively to Sky News about conditions inside, the reality of early release and why we should rethink who is sent to jail.

Here is what he told us.

There is a smell you always associate with prison – the smell of unwashed bodies. Inmates can go two weeks, sometimes more, without changing their clothes.

Laundry services are one of the first things to get dropped as overcrowding means other things are prioritised and access to showers during unlock hours is limited. Personal hygiene is always a trigger for conflict.

Prisoners do not go to prison to be further punished. The punishment is going to prison. When the regime is so curtailed, so tight – prisoners feel they are being further punished, and they are reacting to that through their behaviour.

Even the delivery of food can be a flashpoint for further aggression. If staff are stretched for time – lunch will be taken to cell doors rather than allowing inmates out to the canteen. But for the prisoner – that’s just another example of being denied space out of their cell.

They’re kept behind cell doors anywhere between 20 and 23 hours a day, sometimes in a cell designed for one being shared by two. Floor space is minimal. Toilets can be next to the bed. It’s not conducive to a living environment. So unlock time reaches fever pitch.

On the wings you hear every sound imaginable. A fine line between frenzied excitement and something more sinister. Staff have their wits about them.

Violence

You’d expect jail to be violent by its very nature as an institution. But this is constant. Every day. And it’s getting worse.

Across the estate prisoner on prisoner assaults increased by 16% in the year to March. Assaults on staff increased by 24%. I couldn’t wholeheartedly say staff are safe at work, and at times they dread coming in. They’re leaving the landing in tears. They’re overwhelmed.

The availability of weapons heightens it. And they can be anything. A broken piece of furniture, a razor blade, a kettle of boiling water. Even plastic cutlery. Witnessing the aftermath of attacks with these kind of instruments is very difficult. But you can’t totally eradicate them.

If the day passes where there’s been no violence or incidents of self harm we’d consider it a good day.

Finding a prisoner who has cut themselves is traumatic. Yes you raise the alarm, you summon help from the health team. But in that moment a prison officer’s assistance can be what stands between life and death.

Sometimes there is no warning – staff might find a prisoner who has taken their own life. You might have been the last to see them, locking up the night before.

You might have had a purposeful conversation with them. And the next time you see them – they’ve taken their own life. That is not just another prisoner. It’s a human being you might have got to know very well.

Drugs

The Chief Inspector of Prisons noted in his report earlier this month that illicit drugs were of concern in “too many” prisons.

You can smell them on the wings. You’re more likely to smell them than see them because most of the abuse of drugs takes place behind cell doors. The amount of time prisoners spend behind them lends itself to it – making the passage of time easier.

The threat from drones bringing drugs into prisons has never been as acute as it is today. In order to get them in, prisoners will try to game the system – sometimes with threats and intimidation – to be housed in cells more convenient for accessing them from the outside.

Psychoactive substances have had massive repercussions within the prison environment. Previously rational prisoners take on a virtual personality change. It really does change them. The addiction, though, is such that they just cannot stop.

Early release

Thousands of people were released from across the prison estate last week after serving 40% of their sentence, in order to free up space. Next month we’ll see thousands more do the same.

Irrespective of what stage of their sentence people are released, there will always be those you fear will go on to re-offend. There weren’t many prisoners that I either spoke to or saw released that were talking about this as a golden opportunity to turn their life around.

I worry we’ve pushed the policy through rather quickly, and have concerns about the external infrastructure in place to support them. Releasing prisoners without anywhere to live is only going to go one way.

Which begs the question – are we doing the right thing by these individuals or are we just setting them up to fail to make sure we’ve increased some prison spaces?

If a large proportion of those we’ve released end up coming back, then we haven’t really achieved anything.

Future

If we’re serious about reducing the prison population we need to look at sentencing guidelines for certain offences. This has been topical recently, with high profile cases where we’ve seen people going to prison for cyber-related offences, comments on social media.

Prison needs to be for serious and organised crime, for violent offences.

These will be decisions that need to be made above my pay grade.

If we don’t get it right, and if we don’t review it, then I think the danger is – particularly for the younger generation – they may come to prison for relatively innocuous misdemeanours, and leave with ideas and associations that will take crime to an altogether different level.

And the reaction?

Responding to the points raised by the prison governor, a Ministry of Justice spokesperson said: “This government inherited a prison system in crisis – putting pressure on the entire justice system and ultimately the public at risk.

“We are taking the difficult but necessary action to make sure we can keep locking up dangerous criminals and keep people safe.

“We thank all our staff for their hard work and we will continue to drive improvements in our prisons to help more offenders turn their back on crime.”

The government insists emergency early release measures to deal with overcrowding form only part of their plan to reform the prison system. In the longer term they say they will look at building further cell spaces, review their approach to sentencing and increase the number of probation officers.

Anyone feeling emotionally distressed or suicidal can call Samaritans for help on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org in the UK. In the US, call the Samaritans branch in your area or 1 (800) 273-TALK.

Sir Keir Starmer has received substantially more freebies than any other MP since becoming Labour leader, Sky News can reveal.

Government officials are worried the prime minister’s willingness to accept hospitality to go to football matches could amount to a conflict of interest given plans to overhaul the sport’s regulator which many clubs oppose.

The prime minister received two-and-a-half times more gifts and hospitality than the next MP, according to a league table compiled as part of Sky News’ Westminster Accounts project – which traces how money flows through our political system.

Minister dismisses concerns over free Swift tickets – live updates

Since December 2019, he received £107,145 in gifts, benefits, and hospitality – a specific category in parliament’s register of MPs’ interests.

The next highest in the league table is the Commons leader Lucy Powell on £40,289, while the prime minister received gifts roughly equivalent to the next five MPs combined.

The table does not account for those who received help with legal fees.

‘It’s nuts’

One member of the government called the situation “nuts” and said the freebies “should be banned”.

Sky News has also learnt that officials are warning the prime minister could be opening himself up to inappropriate lobbying by saying he will continue to accept football tickets.

Read more:
Westminster Accounts: How to explore the database for yourself
Westminster Accounts: Search for your MP

Ministers are usually told to avoid hospitality from any organisation connected to an ongoing government regulatory decision, and the future of a football regulator is under consideration at the moment.

The Premier League is one of the biggest donors of hospitality, and Sir Keir – a renowned Arsenal fan – has received almost £40,000 in tickets overall since December 2019.

The Premier League, which is lobbying against a football regulator, declared £12,588 of gifts to Sir Keir; including four Taylor Swift tickets during the election campaign worth £4,000; two Euros finals tickets costing £1,628; and numerous tickets spanning several Arsenal matches costing well over £6,000 in total.

How to explore the Westminster Accounts

PM defiant in face of criticism

Sky News can reveal the prime minister ignored warnings from some in his senior team while in opposition. They feared the issue could cause him political damage, but he justified it by saying it was within the rules.

Senior Labour figures are incandescent that the story about freebies for the Starmer family has dragged on for days, and ministers going out with different and often contradictory explanations.

They blame a lack of political grip on the operation, intensifying pressure on Sir Keir’s chief of staff Sue Gray, and sparking private calls for her to be side-lined or sacked.

Sir Keir defended his right to continue to take football freebies earlier this week, saying: “If I don’t accept a gift of hospitality, I can’t go to a game.”

“Never going to an Arsenal game again because I can’t accept hospitality is pushing it a bit far,” he added.

Sky News asked Number 10 whether football donations were a conflict of interest and about the pre-election discussions about the appropriateness of accepting hospitality.

We also asked for comment on the fact Sir Keir is top of the table for gifts and hospitality, excluding legal donations.

They did not comment.

Biggest donor refreshes PM’s wardrobe

Most of Sir Keir’s gifts and hospitality – £86,708 of the £107,145 – were accepted in the last parliament, but £20,437 was declared in this parliament for accommodation that straddles the two periods.

The biggest donor of gifts and hospitality is Labour peer Waheed Alli, who gave the equivalent of £39,122.

These donations included an unspecified donation of accommodation worth £20,437, “work clothing” worth £16,200, and multiple pairs of glasses equivalent to £2,485.

Starmer’s chief of staff under fire

This comes on a bleak day for Sir Keir after the BBC revealed his chief of staff Sue Gray is paid more than £170,000, which is higher than the prime minister.

Ms Gray was the last government’s ethics chief and even the prime minister’s allies are incandescent she has not put a stop to this practice.

This is embarrassing for Sir Keir after he previously criticised the scale of Dominic Cummings’s salary, who was Boris Johnson’s chief of staff.

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The government does not deny the salary level but insists she did not set the level of her salary herself – which is higher than her predecessor.

However, this has been challenged for figures familiar with the process. They said successive chiefs of staff who preceded Ms Gray had to agree recommendations on adviser pay and advise on the decisions made by ministers.

The rat man from the council has just turned up. He is back at James and Oscar’s home laying more poison that the rats keep eating.

“I woke up the other night at three in the morning and one was biting my nose,” James says.

It’s the stuff of nightmares but it has become James and Oscar’s everyday struggle. A nearby building has the words “rat city” daubed on one of the walls.

“There was a fire next door,” Oscar explains.

“The rats came out of there and now there’s problems with them in the drains.”

He showed us around their overgrown garden. “It’s like a rats’ playground” he says, thoroughly fed up with it all.

The pair are friends and neighbours – and invited us in to discuss the riots that erupted across the UK in early August, including in their home city of Hull.

They were there on the fringes of the trouble but not, they tell us, directly involved.

It was a “kick back”, James tells us, over the UK’s failed immigration policies.

When Keir Starmer described the riots as “far-right thuggery” James believes he failed to grasp what was happening.

“I have seen people crying in doorways… they are cold, and they are hungry…who is helping the English-born people?” has asks.

“What I am not is a racist person… I just look at the pain in people’s eyes sometimes and you think, ‘What the hell? What is going on?’

“Their (migrants’) problems are getting solved but nobody is solving the problem of the people who are living on the streets.”

Neither Oscar nor James work due to poor health and spend their days watching YouTube channels dedicated to investigating Britain’s immigration problems.

They are both angry about immigration, really angry.

While they ultimately blame the government they resent the way asylum seekers are put into hotels while their claims are processed.

“Get rid of them, I just think it is wrong,” Oscar says.

“I ain’t got a problem with being in other people’s countries and I haven’t got a problem with them being in mine.

“But when it’s taking away all our necessary needs – hospitals, dentists, hotels… housing. It is just pfft…” He throws his arms up in the air in despair.

The pair watched as rioters surrounded a hotel next to the station in Hull on 3 August.

It’s currently home to dozens of predominantly young men waiting to hear if they will be allowed to stay.

James acknowledges there was appalling racism that day and says he has sympathy for genuine asylum seekers.

“I don’t think everybody thinks like me and goes, ‘God bless them, they’ve got problems too’,” he says.

“They have been through hell, they have been through warzones but… people felt a lot of anger, a lot of frustration, like, you know, people living on the streets, who are not getting looked after.“

Oscar later takes us to meet Donna – who sits outside a nearby shop with a sign that reads “JOB WANTED”.

She used to run her own cleaning business but after the death of her daughter in a car accident her life fell apart. Last November she also lost her partner.

For the past two and half years, Donna has been homeless. She purposefully hides herself away under a road bridge most nights so nobody can attack her.

“Where I am it’s so dark that nobody is going to be able to see me,” she says.

“Every time you think you are getting back up… there is something or someone who kicks you back down again.

“England is the place that has got a big sign for people that says ‘Freebies’, come in and we’ll get you in a hotel – that is the way it comes across to people.”

“They (the government) want to sort their own problems out first and this is one of them,” says Donna, gesturing to the gloomy underpass she calls her bedroom.

It’s a problem they see most days at a community interest company called Adapt Resettlement further along Anlaby Road.

Every day, Danny and Lisa lead a small team dedicated to trying to get a roof over people’s heads.

“If you’ve got drug problems, mental health problems, even just living on the street, it’s a war every day for them,” says Danny.

“They can pitch up somewhere when a gang of kids will go and kick the tents, will kick their head in, it is a war daily for them.

“So, I get what they’re saying, that they (asylum seekers) are fleeing wars, but ours are fighting in a daily war,” adds Danny.

“Not everybody was in that riot for the same reason. There will have been people in that riot because they are homeless, they haven’t had help.

“But that doesn’t make them racist. They just wanted to get their point across.”

Danny has served time for violent offences in the past – and has also been homeless himself. He pins the blame for the riots squarely at the door of politicians.

“The government laid the bomb. And it’s just exploded,” he says.

“It is down to the government to sort it… The only way that they will do it, in my eyes, is that they give them equal opportunities.

“If they’re going to allow them in then so be it. But please look after ours as well. Otherwise, it’ll just continue, and it will.”

Read more:
Man apologises to mosque worshipper after Hull demo led to riot
Mum-of-six jailed for ‘truly disgraceful’ behaviour in riots

We joined Danny’s final home visit of the day, where we meet Carl.

He’s trying to stabilise his life, improve his health and eat better, but needs ongoing support.

He’s finally got a roof over his head thanks to the project.

“You can shout so loud can’t you and they don’t listen,” Carl tells us.

“It is just one of those things it boils over sometimes.

“There’s a lot of tension in the air, there is a lot of aggression and a lot of animosity.”

The police and courts have clamped down hard on those who were involved in the riots on 3 August. Earlier this month the Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said: “There is no place for such appalling, senseless violence on our streets, and this government is determined to stamp out the scourge of serious violence wherever it is found.”

Meanwhile, the anger, animosity, and jealousy that helped fuel them still exists.

The roots of the riots run deep.