The shocking state of scandal-rocked HMP Wandsworth has been laid bare after graphic footage of a female guard romping with one of their inmates.
Behind the imposing Victorian gatehouse, the crumbling London jail holds more than 1,500 men who spend up to 22 hours a day in squalid, cramped, rat-infested cells – with many high on drugs and in a state of hopelessness and despair.
Seven prisoners have taken their own lives in the 170-year-old prison in the last year alone, where the chief inspector of prisons Charlie Taylor declared last year that there was an ‘ever-present risk’ of catastrophe’.
As lags are left to run riot, in an unannounced visit he found that nearly half tested positive for drugs and security remains a ‘serious concern’ – despite the alleged escape of terror suspect Daniel Khalife last year.
And it appears that prisoners are enjoying the high-life at the hands of the Category A jail’s officers, after an explicit clip emerged of an inmate having sex with one while his gloating cell-mate watched on.
The footage, which MailOnline understands to be recent, begins with her performing a sex act on an unidentified prisoner before having sex with him. Footage of the cell shows a TV and piles of clothes heaped over a bunk bed.
The woman is seen wearing uniform during the explicit clip where she appears to have sex with an unidentified prisoner at the Category A jail in south-west London
The Victorian gatehouse of HMP Wandsworth, which was built in 1851 as the Surrey House of Correction
The grim conditions inside a cell at HMP Wandsworth revealed in a photo from a report by the Chief Inspector of Prisons in 2022. The rats and smell of sewage have been called ‘unbearable’
The friend, who is smoking while recording, says: ‘Guys we’ve made history, this is what I’m telling you.’
The officer’s radio, left on a side table, crackles constantly with her colleagues heard on the other channels above the din of the other prisoners on the landing unaware of what is going on in the cell.
At one point, someone appears to try to come into the cell, at which the man filming, can be heard saying to the person on the other side of the door ‘give me a minute, one second.’
The prisoner filming tells his friend to carry on and then pans the camera round momentarily and, grinning, says: ‘This is how we roll in Wandsworth.’
He then tells his friend having sex: ‘You know you’re gangster innit!’
It comes amid an alarming rise in the number of female officers from across the HM Prison Service found guilty of striking up illicit relationships.
In the three years to March 2023, 31 female prison staff working in male prisons were sacked, including one who gave birth to her inmate lover’s baby and another who had his cell number tattooed on her thigh.
That’s a more than 50 per cent rise on the 19 women sacked in the previous four-year period, and that figure doesn’t include incidents recorded at private prisons, run by companies such as G4S, Serco and Sodexo.
The woman is seen wearing uniform during the explicit clip, which begins with her performing a sex act on an unidentified prisoner at the Category A jail in south-west London
Footage of the cell shows a TV and piles of clothes heaped over a bunk bed
Five men working in male prisons, and one or two women working in women’s prisons, were sacked for inappropriate relationships over the same period.
One whistleblower has blamed this on young, inexperienced staff being put in jails without being trained on how to reject the advances of pent-up male prisoners.
Professor Ian Acheson, a former prison governor, came forward in January to reveal that low-paid new recruits are being rushed through a training process which leaves them ill-equipped to properly deal with manipulative criminals.
Another insider told MailOnline some female staff are so ill-prepared for the job that some turn up for a shift ‘glammed up’ with full make-up and even false eyelashes as if they are going for a night out.
And he claims that the real scale of the problem could be even worse than anyone realises – as many more offending officers are quietly disciplined for flings with prisoners than go to court so that the bulk of cases are hushed up and not publicly known.
Speaking exclusively to MailOnline, Professor Acheson said: ‘I’m told by prison insiders that for every officer detected, many more are quietly required to resign without sanction. That will skew the already alarming figures.
‘The Prison Service is no place for teenagers in uniform, inadequately screened and poorly trained.
Prof Ian Acheson, an expert in the UK’s criminal justice system and specifically the prevention of Islamist and right-wing radicalisation, blamed the current situation on the culmination of years of staff neglect – and said: ‘In modern law enforcement men and women work together across the criminal justice system and prisons are no different. Nor should they be.
The friend who is smoking while recording says: ‘Guys we’ve made history, this is what I’m telling you’
‘However, effective relationships depend on suitable and sufficient officers properly trained and well led. None of these conditions are met in today’s prison services.
‘Emergency recruitment has thrown barely trained youngsters into the maw of disordered and violent prisons across the country. This sets the scene for exploitation and corruption by experienced offenders.
‘We’ve seen the results in the statistics, particularly the rising number of female officers who enter sexual relationships with prisoners. The Ministry of Justice may argue that the data suggests that surveillance by counter corruption teams is working. I think that’s a poor defence.
‘Unless there is a fundamental improvement in recruitment, training, and supervision this behaviour will continue.
‘While an illicit relationship between a female officer and a prisoner might seem relatively harmless, the impact on victims and the danger to prison security is very real.’
Vanessa Frake, former head of security at Wormwood Scrubs, called the footage captured inside HMP Wandsworth ‘shocking’.
She told MailOnline: ‘This is what is completely wrong with the prison service in this day and age!
‘This woman disgraces not only herself, the uniform and the Prison Service.’
More than 80 per cent of prisoners in Wandsworth share cells that are designed for one person
A Prison Service spokesman said: ‘Staff corruption is not tolerated and the former prison officer allegedly featured in this video has been reported to the police.
‘It would be inappropriate to comment further while they investigate.’
The Met Police said: ‘We have been made aware of a video allegedly filmed inside HMP Wandsworth.
‘A police investigation is under way. At this early stage there have been no arrests. We are in close contact with the Ministry of Justice.’
Ian Acheson, a former prison governor, said the footage raised serious security concerns.
‘If this footage is authentic and I’ve been assured it is, the problems confronting a likely new Labour administration go far beyond overcrowding,’ he told MailOnline.
‘This is a national law enforcement agency. The idea that recruits to it would even contemplate let alone participate in sex acts is a stunning indictment of the utter chaos inside this prison. It won’t be an isolated incident.
‘The state is no longer in charge here. The security implications and corruption threat is obvious and as explicit as the flagrant acts. The widespread infiltration of illicit mobile phones will mean that this footage is seen by huge numbers of prisoners.
The prison was described as ‘crumbling, overcrowded and vermin-infested’ by Mr Taylor during his last inspection in 2022 (these photos are taken from his report)
An inmate at HMP Wandsworth filmed the inside of his cell for a TikTok video in 2022
Mobile phones are illegal inside prisons, but they can be smuggled in by visitors or corrupt staff
‘How are decent female officers supposed to feel safe to do their jobs in an environment where colleagues willingly participate in their sexual humiliation and exploitation?’
In May chief inspector of prisons Mr Taylor lifted the lid on the grim reality of life within the 170-year-old London jail.
Described as ‘crumbling, overcrowded and vermin-infested’ by Mr Taylor during his last inspection in 2022, things are now even worse, prompting him to issue an ‘urgent notification’ to ministers warning of the ‘ever-present risk’ of a ‘catastrophe’.
On an unannounced visit this month he found eighty per cent of prisoners sharing cells designed for one person, 44 per cent testing positive for drugs and some going without showers for five days.
And despite the alleged escape of terror suspect Daniel Khalife last year, he said security remained a ‘serious concern’, with staff on the ‘chaotic’ wings frequently unable to accurately account for the whereabouts of their prisoners.
Built more than 170 years ago, Wandsworth is one of the oldest and most famous prisons in the country. It has had its fair share of high-profile inmates, from Oscar Wilde to, more recently, tennis star turned bankrupt Boris Becker.
In his warning to ministers calling for the category B jail to be placed in emergency measures, Mr Taylor described an atmosphere among prisoners ‘characterised by a degree of despondency that I have not come across in my time as Chief Inspector’.
He said staff are hampered by a lack of experience, poor management and a ‘poor or non-existence relationship’ with prisoners.
Wandsworth hit the headlines last year with the alleged escape of 22-year-old terror suspect Daniel Khalife
A filthy cell at Wandsworth with graffiti scrawled over the stained walls
He added that many are suffering from high levels of ‘burn-out’, with a third unavailable for work each day.
Violence is an acute problem inside the jail, with more than 10 assaults on staff every week. The population – which numbered 1,364 two years ago – had risen this month to 1,513.
‘Wanno’ – as HMP Wandsworth is known by its inmates – was where former Wimbledon champion Boris Becker spent his first few weeks after being jailed for hiding £2.5m of assets and loans in a bankruptcy fraud case.
Becker, who was later moved to Huntercombe prison in Oxfordshire, said being a famous tennis player meant nothing in a place where he was surrounded by ‘murderers, by drug dealers, by rapists, by people smugglers, by dangerous criminals’.
He told BBC Radio 5 Live Breakfast: ‘You fight every day for survival. Quickly, you have to surround yourself with the tough boys, as I would call it, because you need protection.’
The brutal realities of life inside the jail were exposed by ex-prisoner Chris Atkins in a book serialised by The Mail on Sunday.
Wandsworth hit the headlines last year with the alleged escape of 22-year-old terror suspect Daniel Khalife, who is said to have strapped himself to the underside of a Bidfood delivery truck with a makeshift harness made from prison bedsheets.
The former British Army soldier was originally arrested in January on terrorism charges after plotting a fake bomb hoax at his army barracks at MoD Stafford and he is also accused of spying for an enemy state, which is understood to be Iran.
Khalife, who will stand trial this year, denies one charge of escape, one of committing an act prejudicial to the state, one of eliciting information about members of the Armed Forces and another of perpetrating a bomb hoax.
Mr Taylor said it was ‘unfathomable’ that security had not improved since the incident in September 2023.
Ian Acheson, the former head of security at HMP Wandsworth and author of Screwed: Britain’s Prison Crisis and How To Escape It, said the inspections revealed a prison where staff had lost control.
Recent inmates at Wandsworth include Boris Becker, who is pictured arriving at court in April 2022 with his partner, Lilian de Carvalho
The official visited this month and found some inmates had not showered for five days (pictured is a washroom in 2022)
‘When we were running Wandsworth we had the right number of staff who were experienced and clearly in charge of the environment,’ he told MailOnline.
‘It was by no means a perfect place but there far fewer assaults on prisoners and far less suicide, self-harm and despair. One of the main reasons why all that has fallen apart is the overcrowding and the lack of experienced staff.
‘The prison has descended even further since Charlie Taylor’s report two years ago – and that’s even after the escape of someone who was considered a threat to national security.
‘Staff have no idea where the people they’ve unlocked are – in a place where people have escaped. It’s an absolute shambles that should stop at the door at Prison Service headquarters.’
Vanessa Frake, who wrote The Governor about her time in the prison service, told MailOnline: ‘Wandsworth a once great prison now known for high profile escapes, vermin infestation, violence and even sewage spilling out!
‘It’s the many hardworking staff behind those walls who have my sympathy.’
Mr Taylor wrote in his letter to Justice Secretary Alex Chalk: ‘The poor outcomes we found at Wandsworth are systemic and cultural failures and stemmed from poor leadership at every level of the prison, from HMPPS and the Ministry of Justice.
‘Many well-meaning and hard-working leaders and staff persevered at Wandsworth, and their resilience was impressive, but they were often fighting against a tide of cross-cutting, intractable problems that require comprehensive, long-term solutions.
‘For this troubled prison to begin to recover, Wandsworth needs permanent experienced leaders at all levels who are invested in its long-term future to improve security, safety and guide their less experienced colleagues.
‘Until this happens, the risk of a further catastrophe, a self-inflicted death or escape from lawful custody, is ever present.’
Prisons minister Edward Argar said the ‘deeply concerning report’ shows the jail continues to face ‘significant challenges’ and it was ‘clear that on top of the additional support we’ve already provided since September to improve safety and security, including nearly £1 million of upgrades, we need to go further still.’
Extra experienced staff will be added to the prison’s management team in the coming weeks to provide the ‘leadership, culture change and training needed to turn Wandsworth around’, he said, adding: ‘In the interim we are deploying more staff, including prison officers, to the prison and will set out further action shortly.’
