Some 200 prison staff arrived for work at Wormwood Scrubs yesterday morning to be told that they would be spending the day in the sunshine outside the front gate. Officers, mostly in uniform, their key-chains dangling from their waists, seemed delighted to be smoking and chatting under the gaze of Elizabeth Fry, the prison reformer, whose marble bust gazed down censoriously from one of the bastions guarding the main entrance.

Staff who were not relaxing in their nearby club milled about in the yard outside, enjoying the calm at the eye of the political storm raging between union officials and their paymasters in Westminster.

John Hancock, branch secretary of the Prison Officers’ Association, arrived at Wormwood Scrubs at 6.15am and stood at the gates to tell arriving staff they would not be guarding the prison’s 1,200 inmates. The only people to cross the picket line were about 20 governor-grade officers – not part of the union – and kitchen staff.

The strike caused problems around the country, as prisons manned with a skeleton staff struggled to deal with incidents. At Liverpool, inmates climbed on to a roof but were coaxed back after an hour when some officers briefly returned to work. At Leeds, firemen were called to a “small cell fire” when an inmate set fire to a rubbish bin. The death of man who was found hanging from a ligature at Ackling-ton Prison in Northumberland is thought not to be related to the strike.

The atmosphere inside prisons was tense, inmates being kept locked in their cells. Mr Hancock said that staff working at Wormwood Scrubs would have their work cut out feeding the prisoners. “They’ll have to do it landing by landing,” he said. “There are 20-odd landings, so it’s going to take them three or four hours to do lunch. And then they’ve got to do tea.”

The prisoners, meanwhile, were making mischief by ringing reporters on smuggled mobile phones. “They’re all on their mobile phones, apparently, talking to these people outside the prison,” Mr Hancock added.

“They will behave themselves today, but I don’t know what will happen if the strike goes on after that.”

Other officers suggested that the prisoners would be watching the strike on television from their cells. The inmates were denied visits, including consultations with legal representatives, and would not be allowed to make appearances at court. They would also be denied a visit to the exercise areas, Mr Hancock said. “I doubt the governors will let them out on a day like this, because they’ll never get them back in again. They will also get no association time, which means they won’t be able to go around and get drugs.”

Striking staff said that the governors would have to keep the inmates calm by raiding the prison shop and handing out chocolate and tobacco as a way of lightening the mood.

Officers had been given no warning of the strike, but all accepted the industrial action when they arrived for the day shift. Mr Hancock received a telephone call from the union’s management committee at 5am and was instructed to stop all members entering the prison once the strike officially began at 7am.

One officer, who declined to give her name, said that it was an ideal day for a strike, but she wished she had known earlier so she could have worn a pair of trousers better suited to the sunshine.

The Crown Courts at Winchester and Southampton, which deal with remand prisoners from Winchester prison, where officers had walked out, were among the courts in parts of England and Wales that were disrupted, when the strike made it impossible to move defendants who were scheduled to attend hearings.

Parkhurst, Camp Hill and Albany prisons on the Isle of Wight were also affected.

Canterbury Crown Court reported a 30-minute delay in bringing one prisoner to court; and the Crown Courts in both Guildford and Kingston upon Thames reported disruption to court business when some prisoners failed to be delivered to court.

In Swindon and Oxford Crown Court, managers reported that all defendants requested to appear court yesterday morning had been delivered on time. But a spokeswoman at Swindon said that the independent contractors who run the shuttle service had left local prisons just before the walkout.

The Crown Courts in Brighton and Lewes were among those to have been caused “no reported problems”, according to a spokeswoman.

The Court Service said: “In the majority of courts, work carried on as usual despite the action. Where cases were affected, the judge or magistrate managed the case list accordingly and some cases were adjourned.” But there were no figures on the number of adjournments, the spokesman said.

Times Recommends

• UK regional accents thrive against the odds
• ‘Scarecrow’ wind farms put rare birds to flight
• What an anti-climax: G-spot is a myth