Inside 'Hellmarsh'

It is Britain's most notorious prison, denounced by human rights campaigners as this country's Guantanamo Bay.

Top-security Belmarsh jail counts extremist preacher Abu Hamza among its inmates, and 11 foreign terrorist suspects are being held there without trial. Disgraced peer Jeffrey Archer, who was once an inmate, dubbed it "Hellmarsh".

But what are conditions really like? The Evening Standard found out as prison chiefs gave us access.

The south-east London prison is one of Britain's most forbidding. No one has escaped since it opened in 1991. Visitors go through a series of security checks. Fingertips are scanned on entry and exit to ensure no convicts sneak out disguised as visitors.

Inside, prisoners polish shiny floors of corridors and cells that are a far cry from those of Victorian jails.

Human rights campaigners have condemned the conditions, pointing to a report by psychiatrists that found eight of the terror detainees are suffering from mental illness, including clinical depression.

But the Prison Service wanted to show how Belmarsh is being transformed with the recruitment of ethnicminority warders, including the first Muslim. Trainee warder Moustapha Bouker, a Moroccan-born ex-bus driver, has already defused tense situations by talking to inmates in Arabic.

Another recruit is Jaya Karir, 47, a mother of four from India, who worked at Sainsbury's pharmacy counter.

A film crew was also allowed to follow Belmarsh's new warders on an eight-week course, which included instruction in race relations and techniques to restrain violent prisoners.

Governor Geoff Hughes admitted the move was a "high-risk strategy". He

said: "There's some particularly sensitive people in there that we don't want to draw attention to, but people say it's Guantanamo Bay in our own backyard.

"Jeffrey Archer called it Hellmarsh. We wanted to change the public perception."

Elaborate security procedures were put in place during filming. Camera crews were accompanied by Prison Service officials all the time, partly for their own protection.

They were forced to turn their cameras away if any of the terrorist suspects came within view because, by law, their image cannot be shown in public.

Many other inmates could not be filmed because they were on remand or their inclusion would have upset their victims' families, making the whole project a minefield.

And many of the older warders refused to co-operate. Some staff did not want to be shown because they live near the prison and have never told their neighbours what they do for a living.

The Prison Service hopes the documentary will change the image of warders as an all-white, largely male group.

At other London jails about one in four staff is black or Asian. The Belmarsh trainees are a diverse group, but senior staff questioned whether admission criteria have been relaxed and standards allowed to slip.