Wandsworth prison is by far the worst I’ve visited

The stern appearance of Wandsworth prison is enough to make grown people shudder.

Based in leafy south-west London, the Victorian-era facility – with its gaunt brick walls and a dark intimidating entrance – is one of the largest in the UK.

The inside is just as intimidating. Having visited several years ago, I was struck by the smell of urine from the gutters that line the cell blocks.

I’ve been inside several prisons during my career but this was by far the worst.

Like many prisons, it suffers from overcrowding and has almost double the number of inmates it was designed to house.

The prison is not known for having robust security. Only a couple of years ago, Daniel Khalife, who was on remand awaiting trial for breaching the Official Secrets Act, escaped by strapping himself to the underside of a food delivery truck.

The mistaken release of two prisoners in a week has once again drawn attention to the Category B jail.

One serving prison officer from the jail described the security as a “joke”.

They told me: “It’s crazy in there and mistakes are constantly happening. There is a real state of panic after this blunder and I’m thinking about whether I can take much more of this job when stuff like this happens and makes us look like idiots.”

An independent monitoring board report released last month said a third of staff are absent every day – while a 2024 inspectorate report said security remained a significant concern.

The prison is renowned for being one of the worst in the country. It received an urgent notification in May 2024 following an unannounced visit by HM Chief Inspector of Prisons Charlie Taylor.

An “urgent notification” in prisons is a formal process where the chief inspector alerts the justice secretary about significant and urgent concerns. The urgent concerns included assaults on staff, overcrowding, and staff not being able to account for prisoners’ whereabouts.

In a letter to the then Justice Secretary Alex Chalk, Mr Taylor wrote: “Inspectors found significant weaknesses in many aspects of security. Wings were chaotic and staff across most units were unable to confirm where all prisoners were during the working day.”

We know very little at this stage about why or how Brahim Kaddour-Cherif, a sex offender, was mistakenly released.

The Metropolitan Police was not told about the error for almost a week and it is unclear why this was the case.

As for a second man, William Smith, the BBC understands his accidental release was due to a clerical error at court. He has since handed himself in.

I hear from insiders that it is a possibility prison staff did not realise Khaddour-Cherif was even missing until a few days after his release.

Sources tell me that the governor of HMP Wandsworth, Andy Davy, was not at the jail on the day Khaddour-Cherif was mistakenly freed.

Ironically, that is because Davy had been tasked with carrying out the inquiry into how Hadush Kebatu was released by accident from Chelmsford prison in Essex. I understand that investigation is now complete.

Almost two weeks ago, the Justice Secretary and Deputy Prime Minister, David Lammy, introduced additional checks after the accidental release of Kebatu to ensure mistakes like that do not happen again.

But these checks are proving to be a “significant burden” according to one senior prison staffer, who said “they’ve only increased the paperwork”. “It’s now taking a day in some cases to complete the checks to release someone and this isn’t helpful when staffing is an issue,” they said.

I understand the early release scheme that was brought in last summer after prisons almost reached full capacity has also increased pressure on staff – and contributed to the increase in accidental releases.

The emergency scheme allows some inmates to be released after serving 40% of their fixed term sentence, rather than the usual 50%.

“There are more comings and goings now, and that means we’re dealing with more checks, more paperwork, more calculations of sentences, and this just means more mistakes are happening. It’s inevitable,” a prison officer said.

More than 200 people were released by mistake over the last year – and the government says it is unacceptable. Some staff are incandescent, saying the prison system has been in crisis for a while now, but that the recent errors are why politicians are suddenly engaging.

“How bad does it have to get before they do something?,” asked one staffer. “It’s a shitstorm.”