Putney residents gasped as they learned prisoners at their local Wandsworth Prison eat meals while sitting on toilets, pay extortionate phone charges with just £2.50 weekly spending money, and endure cells so cramped two men cannot both lie on the floor.
The shocking revelations came during a community talk by Liz Bridge, former Quaker chaplain at Wandsworth Prison, hosted by the Putney Society last Monday at Community Church on Werter Road. Bridge’s unflinching account of conditions inside the Victorian jail confirmed and expanded upon previous Putney.news investigations into the crisis-hit institution.
“A cell in Wandsworth Prison is the size of a bathroom in a semi-detached house,” Bridge told the audience. “There’s no partition between the lavatory and the cell. One person can sit and eat their meal at the counter. The other person either sits hunched on the lower bunk bed, or they have the pleasure of eating their meal sitting on the lavatory.”
Bridge served as chaplain for five years through the COVID pandemic before leaving to campaign for prison reform. During her tenure, she established the Wandsworth Prison Welfare Trust, a charity providing basic items like radios, pens and puzzles to help prisoners “remain sane.”
Temperature crisis and preventable deaths
Bridge’s most disturbing revelation concerned a death from heat exhaustion that occurred in December, despite the winter timing.
“A man died in the prison of heat exhaustion on the 15th of December,” Bridge confirmed. “There was nothing the matter with his heart. He died of heat exhaustion. Some cells are so small both men cannot lie on the floor on a wet towel.”
The account aligns with documented temperature crises and systematic failures leading to preventable deaths at the institution built in the 1850s for 850 prisoners but now holding 1,450.
Exploitative phone charges and clothing crisis
Bridge exposed how the prison system exploits vulnerable families, charging nearly 6p per minute for mobile calls when prisoners receive just £2.50 weekly spending money after deductions.
“The government gives you three pounds a week if you’re in prison, but takes 50p off for having a television,” she explained. “So you have £2.50 spending money” to pay for essential phone contact with family.
The former chaplain held up prison-issue underwear – “one size fits all” – explaining how the laundry system fails regularly. “If you put your clothing into the laundry, you don’t get it back because there’s a great deal of thieving going on.”
She also described the chaotic meal system where breakfast arrives at 4:30pm the previous day, lunch at 11:30am, and dinner includes the following day’s breakfast – leaving prisoners without food for extended periods.
Community response and action
The talk highlighted how local taxpayers fund a failing system costing £50,000 annually per prisoner at Wandsworth – “enough to buy a hospital bed and a lot of other things,” Bridge noted.
Her Wandsworth Prison Welfare Trust is launching a Christmas appeal to provide new underwear, socks and tracksuit bottoms for prisoners leaving jail. “I want everybody leaving the prison to not walk out in their prison clothes, which is what you frequently see,” she said.
The Putney Society’s decision to host this difficult topic demonstrates the organisation’s commitment to addressing serious local issues through informed community debate. The talk, recorded and available online, provides residents with crucial education about a major institution affecting their area.
Bridge’s revelations add to mounting evidence of institutional failures and accountability problems that have led some to call for the prison’s closure.
Her insider perspective contrasts sharply with popular prison portrayals in “Porridge” or “The Shawshank Redemption,” revealing instead a system failing both prisoners and the taxpaying community funding it.
The talk is available online. Residents wanting to support the Wandsworth Prison Welfare Trust can donate online at its website.
