Environmental health officials are called to Forest Bank prison as it is 'infested with rats'

A council environmental health official has been called in to Forest Bank prison in Salford amid reports of a growing infestation of rats and mice. One former inmate has described how rodents can get into cells and 'chew' on their food.

The claims come a month after the privately run prison - operated by Sodexo for the Ministry of Justice - was savaged in an inspectorate report which concluded the jail was 'unable to fulfil its role successfully'. The same report also noted 'an ongoing problem with mice'.

Today prison officials would not be drawn on the scale of the infestation when pressed by the Manchester Evening News but they did confirm a council environmental health official had visited the jail, sited on the banks of the River Irwell in Agecroft.

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One recently-released inmate told the M.E.N: "You're in your pad at night and you wake up in the morning and half your food has been chewed at. It's horrendous. There are rat droppings everywhere.

"They give us a plastic box to keep our food in but it still gets eaten. I've never been to prison before and I won't go back. It was shocking."

He described how inmates fashioned 'rodent excluders' from socks and toilet roll to prevent unwelcome visitors, but to no avail.

The former prisoner described how about 20 inmates were given a free Dominos pizza after they were ordered to scrub the kitchen. "It should be clean anyway," he said.

He added: "I've never seen so many clueless people in one place and I'm not just talking about the cons. It's a bomb waiting to go off. It's run by very young girls with fake eye lashes and curls. The management