Prisoners find sneaking out 'easy'

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Prisoners found it "relatively easy" to leave, inspectors said.

Only six staff were on duty at night to watch 500 inmates. Some arranged for drink and other banned items to be left outside the perimeter for collection.

Last year staff discovered a stash of 30 bottles of vodka. The report said such finds were "not uncommon".

The week before the inspection, in October, two "violently drunk" prisoners vandalised a segregation block. In another incident a prisoner was attacked by five others wearing balaclavas.

Staff asked for more CCTV cameras but were refused because of cost, the report said.

"The main security problems were the smuggling of alcohol, drugs and mobile phones in to the prison," the report said.

"The size of the site and low staffing level at night meant that it was relatively easy for prisoners to leave residential areas at night and return with alcohol and other contraband purchased locally or left on the edge of the perimeter by accomplices."

Geoff Dobson, deputy director of the Prison Reform Trust, said: "With the massive increase in the number of people serving long and indeterminate sentences, open prisons have a vital role to play in helping prisoners prepare for and adjust to life on the outside.

"It is very disappointing that Ford prison has again been found wanting in its principal task, that of resettlement."