Police cells 'cost more than night at the Ritz' cheaper

Jails overspill: Charge for guarding prisoners attacked as monstrous uard-duty charges attacked as monstrous waste of m money

JASON BENNETTO

Crime Correspondent

Police are charging up to pounds 1,746 a night to keep a prisoner awaiting trial in cells - five times more than a stay in the executive mini suite at the Ritz hotel - it emerged yesterday.

The costliest cells in England and Wales are in Sheffield, with North Wales the second most expensive at an average of pounds 1,272 a day for each inmate, according to Prison Service figures.

About pounds 16m was spent in the year to 15 June on keeping prisoners on remand in police cells. In most cases, this was because of overcrowding in jails.

Police charges for the service, which vary from an average of pounds 251 per person per night in Merseyside to pounds 1,746 in South Yorkshire, were yesterday described as a "monstrous" waste of public money by a penal reform group. The Home Office refunds most of the expenses incurred by the police.

Compared to the cost of housing a remand prisoner at Sheffield's police headquarters, Britain's plushest hotels are a snip. The price of pounds 305.50 will pay for a night in the executive room at the Ritz in London.

Instead of bare walls and bars the room features a marble bathroom, a large seating area and double bed, all decorated in the style of Louis XVI with gold leaf edge. Both the police and the Ritz provide televisions and 24-hour room service.

Details of the charges were issued in a written reply by Derek Lewis, the director general of the Prison Service, to a parliamentary question. They reveal that Greater Manchester Police, which had to house prisoners following the Strangeways riots, charged nearly pounds 12m in 1994-95. Their average cost per night is pounds 277 for each prisoner.

The costs are almost entirely made up of police wages plus a flat fee of pounds 3 a night for each prisoner. Officers get paid an extra 50 per cent for guarding people awaiting trial.

Sgt Andy Brookes, of South Yorkshire Police, said yesterday that the high costs where due to the low number of people who were being held in police cells at any one time. "It costs almost the same to keep one person under guard than it does 20. The problem is the facilities have not been used to full capacity."

A North Wales Police spokesman said the Prison Service had got its sums wrong; the average cost of housing a prisoner in their cells was pounds 314 a night.

Stephen Shaw, Director of the Prison Reform Trust, said: "It's very difficult to understand how these amounts can ever be justified. It's a monstrous waste of public money."

The Prison Service has been working towards eliminating the use of police cells for remand prisoners. The cost and number of people kept in police cells has plummeted since its height in 1991 when there were 352,000 "prisoner nights". However, in the past few years there has been a gradual rise. The number of "prisoner nights" in 1993 was 9,796, rising to 54,277 in 1994. In the first six months of this year there were more than 34,000.

The cost of holding prisoners in police cells was pounds 11m in 1993-94, and pounds 16m in 1994-95.

A Prison Service spokesman said that the opening of new jails in the coming year should end the use of police cells.

Mary Honeyball, general secretary of the Association of Chief Officers of Probation, said millions were being wasted while the probation service was having its finances cut.