Last inspectedAugust 2025Full inspection, unannounced
Source: HM Inspectorate of Prisons report published 10 November 2025; visiting details from GOV.UK · last checked 29 October 2026
Latest inspection
At its last full inspection (August 2025; report published November 2025), inspectors found outcomes for prisoners were poor for purposeful activity; not sufficiently good for safety; reasonably good for respect and preparation for release. It held 830 people at the time, against an operational capacity of 832. An independent review of progress was published in June 2026.
Safety: not sufficiently good · Respect: reasonably good · Purposeful activity: poor · Preparation for release: reasonably good Read our story
Safety: reasonably good · Respect: good · Purposeful activity: not sufficiently good · Rehabilitation and release planning: reasonably good Read our story
Safety: not sufficiently good · Respect: good · Purposeful activity: not sufficiently good · Rehabilitation and release planning: good Read our story
An evaluation commissioned by the Ministry of Justice found refurbished cells at HMP Liverpool were cleaner and brighter, but said consultation, accessibility and contingency planning needed to improve.
An officer who found Brian Holland unresponsive had no radio and had to look for a colleague to raise the alarm, a Prisons and Probation Ombudsman report has found.
The woman, who called herself “the prisoner’s version of Deliveroo”, received five years and three months after admitting misconduct in a public office.
Inspectors found the highest positive drug-testing rate of any reception prison and rated purposeful activity poor, though staff-prisoner relationships remained a real strength.
Prison News staff
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