HMP LONG Lartin in South Littleton could be made to modernise its sanitation at the taxpayer’s expense if a High Court lawsuit succeeds.

Roger Gleaves is seeking to force the Government to do away with the practice of ‘slopping out’ – using a bucket as a toilet – at prisons where in-cell toilets are not available 24 hours a day.

Despite the practice being formally terminated as a system in the UK in 1996, Long Lartin is one of 10 prisons around the country where slopping out still takes place when regular systems fail.

Gleaves, who was jailed for 15 years in 1998 for rape and indecent assault, claims his human rights were violated by the “degrading”

process and has been joined in his claim by fellow former inmates at HMP Albany, Isle of Wight, Peter Kirby and Desmond Grant.

Rikki Garg, a solicitor representing Gleaves, Kirby and Grant, said it could cost the taxpayer £82 million just to convert HMP Albany.

With nine other prisons also tied up in the case, the cost to the taxpayer could end up being in the hundreds of millions.

Barrister Nick Armstrong, representing Kirby and Grant, said that after a pre-trial review of the case at the High Court in London the Home Office was resisting the claims, fearing that the British economy could be faced with a colossal bill for converting the often Victorian jails with modern sanitation systems.

A Prison Service spokesman said: “The National Offender Management Service is robustly defending the claims. While the matter remains the subject of litigation, it would be inappropriate to comment further on the individual cases.

“In-cell sanitation has been in place in prisons since 1996. Current practice is that all new prisons have a toilet in every cell.

“In some older prisons where incell sanitation is unavailable, prisoners have access to sanitation facilities outside their cell.”