London - Britain's chief inspector of prisons, Sir David Ramsbotham, yesterday criticised conditions at Birmingham's Winson Green jail as some of the worst ever seen and admitted he no longer knew to whom he could turn to get things improved.
About 11 per cent of inmates claimed to have been assaulted by officers and one mentally-disturbed prisoner had been denied a wash or change of clothes for weeks because staff thought he was faking his illness.
Ministers had ignored Sir David's appeals to improve the Victorian prison and it had actually worsened since his last highly-critical report to become "far worse than in other failing prisons", he said.
The Prison Service's response to the damning inspection in 1998 had been to introduce budget cuts of £860,000, he added. The latest inspection, carried out last July, makes 300 recommendations for action.