PRISON officers told Justice Secretary Chris Grayling yesterday to “open his eyes” to Britain’s jails meltdown after inspectors unearthed rising violence and overcrowding at an understaffed Kent facility.

An unannounced visit at HMP Elmley on the Isle of Sheppey revealed how prisoners are caged in cramped cells for 23 hours at a day in a jail peppered with bird excrement.

Prison Officers Association (POA) general secretary Steve Gillan said the findings “mirror everything that this union has been saying.”