THE former secretary of state for justice has admitted the Conservative government made mistakes which led to the current prison crisis, not least at HMP Winchester.

A Channel 4 interview which grilled David Gauke about reports of atrocious conditions in jails across the country began with a question about the Hampshire city's Victorian prison.

Mr Gauke, justice secretary between 2018 and 2019 under PM Theresa May, said: "What we did see, if we want to look back over that record, is that I think everyone has to accept the number of prison officers were cut back by too much."

Interviewer Jackie Long then asked: "A mistake?"

READ MORE: Former magistrate calls Winchester Prison 'rotting, festering cesspit'

HMP Winchester (Image: Newsquest) Mr Gauke replied: "Yeah, that was a mistake that got reversed. There were also some problems that didn’t stem necessarily from policy, but also, for example, from the widespread use of spice. So synthetic drugs became much more prevalent during the 2010s than had previously been the case."

Mr Gauke also said in the interview that he accepts that violence is still too high within our prison system and added that there are multiple problems with how it operates. 

He said he accepts the challenge at the moment and in the years ahead is that the prison system is at capacity.

He said: "The prison population is projected to grow by something like 4,500 a year. There simply isn’t the possibility of building our way out of that crisis. So we are all going to have to look at ways in which people who would otherwise be in prison are outside of prison."

HMP Winchester has recently been taken as a national emblem of the pitiful conditions many inmates live in, with one former magistrate calling the jail a "rotting, festering cesspit".

It also comes as a report in the Observer published on November 17 found more than a third of assaults on UK prison officers are not fully investigated. 

It said that cuts to budgets, increased inmate numbers, longer sentences and lower staffing levels have all led to extra pressure. 

A recent report by the criminal justice joint inspectorates found the rate of prison officers leaving each year is now at 13.4 per cent and assaults against staff in prisons have almost tripled since 2005.

Former officer Sarah Nixon of Winchester University’s department of policing, criminology and forensics, speaking to the Observer, said: “When I was an officer – between 2003 and 2009 – you wouldn’t ever really get assaulted. I’ve been in to prison since, and it’s a whole different story. It feels unsafe – there’s just not enough staff.”