THE poor treatment of prisoners in a Sussex prison was caused by “systemic failures,” a new report has revealed today.

Concerns have been raised in the new report by HM prison inspector Peter Clarke about the conditions faced by male prisoners in HMP Lewes.

The report found that a recent inspection of the prison in January 2019 showed signs of worsening conditions in terms of the respect that prisoners are given.

There was also a steep decline in the purposeful activity prisoners are allowed to carry out and in steps taken towards their rehabilitation.

Safety was also declining in performance, but it had not declined aggressively enough for HMP Lewes to be given the worst possible grading.

The prison was last inspected in January 2016, when inspectors said that the conditions were “reasonably good” in respect and resettlement, but “not sufficiently good” in safety. 

In 2017, the prison was put into special measures by the prison service, which drafted 45 “action points” to carry out improvements to the prison.

However, out of these 45 points, 39 had not been completed by January 2019.

The report also found that since the last inspection there had been five suicides in the jail, and incidents involving prisoner self-harm had tripled.

The findings of the report were labelled “deeply troubling” by Mr Clarke, who suggested that the problems are “indicative of systemic failure” and suggested that a lack of management leadership was to blame for the declining quality of the prison.

He added: “The results of this inspection clearly showed that, far from delivering better outcomes, two years of ‘special measures’ had coincided with a serious decline in performance.”

Labour shadow prisons minister Imran Hussain said: “This deeply damning report exposes once again how, despite the rhetoric, the Tories are failing to tackle the emergency gripping the whole prison estate.

“No prison in special measures should ever be getting worse. Cuts to staff and budgets have left prisons across the whole estate unable to respond to the changes demanded by prison inspectors.”