The filthy conditions at Pentonville prison may come as shock, but they won't be a surprise - at least to fans of Pete Doherty.
The Babyshambles lead singer turned to verse to describe his impressions of the state of jail on his brief stay earlier this year. On day one of his prison diary, he wrote:
I see paint-cracked walls stained with shite
Long long lock-up days
Cold lonely nights
And I think to myself ... what a wonderful world
He went on to talk about "shit parcels" and clapped-out showers. Now it is clear that he was not exaggerating for poetic effect.
It was once all so different at Pentonville. When it was built in 1842, it was regarded as such a model prison that 54 others were built to similar designs.
Pentonville's central hall and radiating wings were thought to be inspired by the philosopher Jeremy Bentham's idea for a panopticon, in which prisoners could be constantly observed without knowing it.
The Victorian journalist and social reformer Henry Mayhew was mightily impressed when he inspected the prison in 1862.
"The first thing that strikes the mind on entering the prison passage is the wondrous and perfectly Dutch-like cleanliness pervading the place," he wrote.
"The floor, which is of asphalt, has been polished, by continual sweeping, so bright that we can hardly believe it has not been black-leaded, and so utterly free from dust are all the mouldings of the trim stucco walls that we would defy the sharpest housewife to get as much off upon her fingers as she could brush even from a butterfly's wing.
"In no private house is it possible to see the like of this dainty cleanliness, and as we walk along the passage we cannot help wondering why it is that we should find the perfection of the domestic virtue in such an abiding-place."
At some point in the last 144 years, something has gone badly wrong at Pentonville.
