Brixton is not itself a decent or respectable place

Juliet Lyon Prison Reform Trust

Sir David describes this as "appalling irresponsibility".

He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that an imaginative plan by a previous governor, which had included a workshop, education centre and gym, had been cancelled.

"Therefore in addition to Brixton failing its prisoners, Brixton itself had actually been failed by ministers and the Prison Service who hadn't given it the resources to do the job," he said.

He was highly critical of the Prison Service's management style where the emphasis was on paperwork, not grassroots supervision of prison staff.

And he described the hospital's conditions as filthy, including rusty pipes and windows caked in pigeon droppings.

In the report he said staff responsible for cutting wires on the alarm system, discovered during the inspection, should be disciplined.

Prison officers are hardworking members of the community

Tom Robson, of the Prison Officer Association

Tom Robson, of the Prison Officers Association,said there had been a lack of capital investment.

And he went as far as saying there had been "contrived neglect by the Prison Department regarding the hospital's conditions.

"Prison officers are hardworking members of the community. They do a very very difficult and dangerous job under difficult conditions," he said.

He added that a new management team was in place at the prison.

Earlier, a spokesman for the association said some of the claims in the report were clearly false and one was outlandish.

Investment

The director of the Prison Reform Trust, Juliet Lyon, said it was clear from the Chief Inspector's report that Brixton Prison could not hope to prevent re-offending and help people to lead responsible lives on release.

Brixton has been criticised for 'pitifully low levels of purposeful activity'

"Dogged by overcrowding, high rates of staff sickness, pitifully low levels of purposeful activity, endemic racism and constant changes of leadership, Brixton is not itself a decent or respectable place," she said.

"A failing prison is a process not an event. The question has to be asked - how did the Prison Service allow standards at Brixton to fall so disastrously low?"

Paul Cavadino, director of policy for the National Association for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders, said it was unacceptable for prisoners to be held in such conditions 10 years after the Woolf report called for an improvement in British prison regimes.

"For years staff at Brixton have been struggling to provide a regime in an overcrowded jail with reduced budgets, no workshops and no classrooms," he said.