An emergency measure to avoid prison overcrowding has been activated as people involved in rioting across England are being sentenced.
The plan - known as Operation Early Dawn - allows defendants to be held in police cells until prison beds become available.
The measure was activated for the north of England early on Monday morning.
The Ministry of Justice said it was being activated “following longstanding capacity failures and recent outbreaks of far-right disorder”.
Prisons and Probation Minister, Lord Timpson, said: “We inherited a justice system in crisis and exposed to shocks. As a result, we have been forced into making difficult but necessary decisions to keep it operating.
“However, thanks to the hard work of our dedicated staff and partners, we have brought forward additional prison places and now introduced Operation Early Dawn to manage the pressure felt in some parts of the country.”
The measure will be put in place in the North East and Yorkshire; Cumbria and Lancashire; and Manchester, Merseyside and Cheshire regions.
On Sunday, as the government was poised to bring in Operation Early Dawn, Mark Fairhurst, the national chairman of the Prison Officers’ Association (POA), said the measure risks “clogging up police cells”.
He told BBC Radio 4’s Broadcasting House: “This is all a result of the rioters. Last week, we had the biggest influx of new receptions I’ve seen for quite some time.
“We had 397 new receptions. As of Friday we only had 340 spaces left in the adult closed male estate which is feeling the most pressure.”
Mr Fairhurst said the move would put pressure on police forces.He added: “You’re now clogging up police cells, so they haven’t got the power to arrest people and put them away in a police cell. It has a massive knock-on effect on the entire criminal justice system.”
National Police Chiefs’ Council custody lead Deputy Chief Constable Nev Kemp stressed on Monday morning: “We are working closely with criminal justice system partners to manage demand in the system and ensure that the public are safe.
“Policing will continue to arrest anyone that they need to in order to keep the public safe, including policing protests and events and ensuring that people are arrested as expected.”
After the riots that broke out across England following the stabbing of three girls in Southport, a total of 460 people had appeared in magistrates’ courts relating to the disorder by the end of Thursday.
The government says it is in the process of fast-tracking hundreds of extra jail places into use, so people found guilty of public disorder and other offences can be locked up.
Last month, the Ministry of Justice said violence and self-harm in prison had risen to “unacceptable” levels as overcrowding pushed jails to the “point of collapse”.
Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood has announced plans to cut the proportion of the sentence inmates must serve behind bars from 50 per cent to 40 per cent - in what the government described as “difficult but necessary changes” to ease overcrowding.The temporary move – which does not apply to those convicted of sex offences, terrorism, domestic abuse or some violent offences – is expected to result in 5,500 offenders being released in September and October.
Operation Early Dawn was previously triggered by the Conservative government in May in a bid to tackle overcrowding in jails.
