£145,000 of damage caused at HMP Grampian ‘superjail’

PRISONERS at a state-of-the-art “superjail” opened just 18 months ago have already caused damage worth £145,000.

Damage to areas of HMP Grampian has totalled 145,000 pounds. Picture: Contributed

HMP Grampian - a “purpose-built community-facing prison” - was opened in 2014, with spaces for 500 offenders at a cost of £150m.

Despite inmates enjoying hour-long video calls to families and Christmas dinners that cost more than those served to hospital patients, taxpayers have been left with a £145,477 bill for vandalism.

The documents, provided by the Scottish Prison Service (SPS) under Freedom of Information, show the Peterhead jail recorded 16 vandalised cells, four trashed common spaces and four damaged “other” spaces.

An external section of HMP Grampian. Picture: Contributed

The bill at HMP Grampian accounts for almost half of the total bill of £330,000 for all of the SPS’s 13 public and two private prisons for the past three years.

The next largest bill came from HMP Low Moss near Glasgow, which houses prisoners with shorter sentences and those preparing for release.

Low Moss has spent over £68,340 repairing damage over the past three years.