‘Squalid’, scandal-hit prison forced to order coats, blankets and soup for inmates after heating failure

The heating system failure a 170-year-old prison forced authorities to order thousands of extra coats, blankets and hot meals for inmates, a new report has revealed.

Disruptions to the heating and hot water supplies at HMP Wandsworth in south-west London became so critical in November last year that the situation was officially recorded as a "loss of service", according to the Independent Monitoring Board (IMB).

Winter temperatures inside the deteriorating Victorian facility have been known to sink as low as 12C.

As a result, prison management had to order an additional 1,500 coats, 1,000 blankets, and 2,000 instant soups and noodles for the male prisoners.

The IMB, which comprises volunteers tasked by ministers with scrutinising custody standards, warned that heating problems will recur until systems are fully replaced, "rather than patched up in a piecemeal manner".

The category B prison holds inmates in "unsafe, overcrowded, unsanitary and squalid conditions," the report concluded, adding: "The severe physical limitations of the Victorian buildings remain, with inhumane living conditions,"

Staff shortages also remain an urgent issue at the site, with approximately one third of personnel absent or unavailable on an average day, increasing the hours spent locked inside cells for inmates, the board said.

Inmates freed from HMP Wandsworth under the Government’s early release scheme this month described conditions inside the prison as “awful”, and said “there’s not enough space”.

It is the second most overcrowded prison in the country, holding 60% to 80% more people than it is designed for.

The majority of prisoners share extremely cramped cells originally intended for single occupancy, according to the IMB.

Almost half the prisoners are foreign nationals, it added.

Wandsworth has been embroiled in a number of scandals in recent years.

Its governor was called in for crisis talks when two criminals, Brahim Kaddour-Cherif and Billy Smith, were released by mistake in November last year.

Also in 2025, former Wandsworth prison officer Linda De Sousa Abreu, 30, was jailed for 15 months after having sex with an inmate in a cell.

In September 2023, former soldier Daniel Khalife, later found guilty for spying for Iran, escaped from the south-west London jail by clinging to the underside of a food delivery truck.

He was caught on a canal towpath by a plainclothes detective days later.

IMB chairman Matthew Andrews said: “The commitment of a strong senior management team and a core of dedicated staff was commendable and meant the prison had a relatively good year.

“This was achieved despite the ongoing and chronic staff shortages.

“However, in a remand prison where almost half the prisoners were foreign nationals and also many men had mental health problems, this ensured that significant management challenges remained.”