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Last month a report said during lockdown up to 85 percent of the whole prison population had just an hour outside their cells. The study funded by the Economic and Social Research Council said the practice had ended, and the Ministry of Justice also insisted it was no longer the case. However, Adrian Darbishire QC told Isleworth Crown Court it remained commonplace in many prisons with no “current end in sight”. The court heard that prison conditions had been “difficult since the outbreak of the pandemic”.

But Mr Darbishire said: “No one thought in 2020 that in July 2022 prison conditions would be as they are now.”

He made the claim as he defended a man who was about to be jailed for running a £105million money-laundering ring that flew cash from the UK to Dubai in suitcases. He urged the judge to take into account during the sentencing of Abdullah Alfalasi, 47, that he had spent 23 hours a day in a cell while on remand since December.

He said: “We know sometimes that when things go bad it takes an awful long time to get better again. When will things be back to right in the prison service with prisoners no longer spending 23 hours a day in their cells? Or is it that at some institutional level someone is content that now this is what prison represents?”

The Judge described Alfalasi as being “isolated” since his arrest. He said: “There have been very difficult prison conditions since the outbreak of the pandemic. We have known this since it began and it has continued for those in custody.”

He reduced his 12.5-year sentence for money laundering to nine years and seven months also due to his late guilty plea.

Relatives of remand prisoners in HMP Liverpool, Manchester and Birmingham claimed loved ones were kept in the same condition. One said: “My brother is in HMP Liverpool on remand. He is unlocked for one hour a day maximum.”

A woman whose father is on remand in Birmingham said: “Most of them are still on 23-hour lock up in Birmingham unless the prisoner is enhanced or working.”

Mark Fairhurst, National Chairman of the Prison Officers Association, said it did not want prisoners locked away for prolonged periods but sometimes it was still necessary to isolate infected prisoners.

He added: “There are a lot of prisons struggling to unlock prisoners and provide regimes due to staffing shortages caused by an unattractive salary and austere working conditions. The Government needs to make Prison Officer pay more attractive so we can sustain progressive, productive and rehabilitative regimes. None of us wish to see prisoners languishing in cells.”

An MoJ spokeswoman categorically denied prisoners, including Alfalasi, were still being kept in cells for 23 hours a day.

She said: “Manchester is operating a regime whereby prisoners are out of their cells for at least four to five hours a day, access to showers and the gym is unaffected, meals are taken in the canteen as usual, and there are in-cell telephones which the prisoners are able to use when they like.”

She said that prisoners at Liverpool are allowed out for a minimum of two to three hours a day, adding: “Work and meaningful activity has also resumed at the prison Mr Alfalasi is in, and it is untrue that prisoners at that location are only allowed out for one hour a day.”

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