By C1 Staff
UNITED KINGDOM – An inmate at HMP Nottingham has gouged out his eyes in protest of sweltering conditions inside his cell.
The Daily Mail reports that the unnamed inmate was taken to a nearby hospital for medical treatment, where he remains. He was within days of his release.
Temperatures were said to have reached 25C (77 F) at the time of the inmate’s self-harm.
East Midlands Ambulance Service confirmed that it was called to the scene to treat a male inmate and that a prison nurse was already helping the man.
Police were also called to the jail to the report of an injured man, and following inquiries, ‘it was established that no crime had taken place.’
Conditions inside the prison are currently being scrutinized; the Chief Executive of the Howard League for Penal Reform claimed that there was virtually no ventilation from prison windows, causing temperatures in cells that hold between two and three men to swelter to unbearable levels.
She also said that inmates were held inside their cells for upward of 23 hours a day, stating that ‘we have reverted to prison conditions of the eighteenth century.’