Jails are 'blighted'

A team from the Council of Europe, based in Strasbourg, have urged Britain to tackle overcrowding in the country's jails. In some areas, inmates were packed three to a cell and they "ran a not inconsiderable risk of physical ill-treatment by police officers", said the council's committee for the prevention of torture.

"Certain areas of Leeds, Liverpool and Wandsworth prisons are blighted by the pernicious combination of overcrowding, lack of integral sanitation and a poor regime of activities," it added.