Prisoners have had to sleep in cells under courts because the jail service has run out of space to hold offenders in the latest crisis to hit the Home Office.

The emergency decision to hold offenders overnight in court cells came as 330 prisoners were “locked out” of jails when all 139 prisons in England and Wales were full.

Last night the crisis deepened as police were unable to find enough cells to hold prisoners under long-term contingency plans. Police had only 264 cells but were asked by the Prison Service to find accommodation for 450 people.

A surge in the number of offenders being jailed since Christmas has resulted in the Prison Service having to implement a contingency plan in which prisoners are held in police cells. But there were not enough police cells or prison spaces in London and the South East, so offenders spent the night at courts.

The Prison Service confirmed yesterday that it had been forced to reintroduce Operation Safeguard, only 26 days after the service had announced that an earlier crisis in which it had been used had come to an end.

The latest developments heap further embarrassment on the Home Office and John Reid, as Home Secretary. The Prison Service has now run out of spaces twice in three months.

A Prison Service spokeswoman said that the decision to reactivate Operation Safeguard was taken on Tuesday. “The Home Secretary has been made aware of the decision,”she said. Gerry Sutcliffe, the Prisons Minister, held urgent talks with officials yesterday in an attempt to prevent offenders having to be held in court cells for a further night.

Charles Bushell, the general secretary of the Prison Governors Association, said: “We have no idea how the next three months or so until Easter is to be negotiated if the rise in numbers continues.” David Davis, the Shadow Home Secretary, said: “It is clear that in the last eight months the Home Office has descended into a spiral of decline under John Reid.”

Meanwhile, the governor of an open jail called for tougher punishments to be given by the Prison Service to inmates who abscond. Chris Davidson, the Governor of Sudbury prison, in Derbyshire, said that offenders should be given more than a “few days added to their sentence”.

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