INSPECTORS have condemned “appalling conditions” at a prison after finding acutely mentally ill women being held in cells with “scratch marks and blood stains on the walls.”

Chief Inspector of Prisons Charlie Taylor said the levels of distress witnessed among women in crisis at one wing in Eastwood Park were appalling, with one experienced inspector describing the conditions as the worst he had ever seen.

The damning report, published today, details the findings of an unannounced inspection of the prison in Gloucestershire in October last year.