There's a crisis at Strangeways, but we might not know the half of it

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A prisons watchdog has failed to produce required inspection reports into HMP Manchester for each of the last three years, the Manchester Evening News can reveal. It has led to a call for reform of Independent Monitoring Boards (IMB) - statutory bodies whose volunteer members are appointed by the government and given unrestricted access to jails so they can produce independent annual reports.

The IMB has blamed 'fluctuating' membership of its HMP Manchester board and insists that, while it has not produced any reports in the last three years, it has still been 'monitoring' Strangeways. It comes during a period in which the rat-infested Victorian prison has spiralled into a crisis characterised by squalid conditions and rampant drug abuse among inmates.

HM Inspectorate