THE Home Office is bending its own rules by sending murderers, rapists and armed robbers to open prison years before they are eligible, it has been revealed.

Some are put in the category D jails despite having previously absconded and at least one has escaped and is still on the run.

A covert investigation at North Sea Camp, Lincolnshire, where the disgraced peer Jeffrey Archer was an inmate, exposed the extent of drug use by offenders, with one inmate being filmed smoking heroin. Prisoners smuggled in alcohol at will and circumvented drug tests by using urine from “clean” detainees.

The inquiry points to a malaise among staff, with some taking little notice of security procedures: one inmate replaced his photograph on a pass with a hand-drawn image. An officer said he just wanted to “sit here and watch telly. [I] try and go round with blinkers on”.

Up to a quarter of inmates appear to have been moved to the jail despite Home Office guidelines restricting such placements. These state that offenders should not be transferred more than two years prior to their earliest possible parole date, typically halfway through a sentence.

Only if a governor decides to make an “exceptional” case can an inmate otherwise be transferred to an open prison. Yet such exceptions are now routine.

Brian Waite, who was given an 11-year sentence in 2003 for robbing a security van, arson and twice failing to answer bail, walked out of North Sea Camp in December and is believed to be in the Netherlands. He should have stayed in a closed prison until last month.

Waite, who beat a security guard with a metal pole during the robbery, was among at least nine inmates sent to North Sea Camp as “exceptional” cases as of last November.They included: An inmate convicted 12 months ago of robbery and firearms offences and sentenced to 10 years in prison. He would ordinarily not be eligible to serve at an open prison until 2009 A man given 19 years in 2002 for running a heroin drugs ring and who should not have been in an open prison before 2010 An inmate convicted of murder in 1997, who should have been kept in closed conditions until at least November this year.

The revelations cast new light on Britain’s prisons, which were revealed last week to be home to a record 80,316 prisoners.

This weekend Martin Narey, a former head of the Prison Service, warned that the figure could reach 100,000 by 2010, while David Blunkett, a former home secretary, spoke of his “big regret” over the total of offenders jailed for minor crimes.

According to new figures, nearly 40% of inmates in open prisons committed violent or sexual offences. In the year to last April, 700 absconded from open prisons and the government has admitted that it does not know how many remain at large.

Lord Ramsbotham, a former chief inspector of prisons said: “The system for sending people to these places has broken down. The public ought to be concerned because the type of person absconding from there represents a risk.”

Brian Caton, general secretary of the Prison Officers Association, said: “Open prisons are being misused for political purposes. There are many people held in open prisons because the assessment on them has either been set aside or ignored. The Home Office is allowing the criteria to be skewed towards getting people out of closed category C prisons and into category D prisons before they are ready.”

Harry Fletcher, the assistant general secretary of the National Association of Probation Officers, said the investigation backed its own study showing that dangerous criminals were placed in open prisons to make space in closed jails.

The investigation, to be shown on Channel 4’s Dispatches tomorrow, was carried out by Dafydd Evans, a television executive convicted last year of causing death by dangerous driving and given a three-year sentence. After an internal inquiry by North Sea Camp, an inmate accused Evans of giving offenders money to buy drugs. Channel 4 denied the claim.

A Home Office spokeswoman said: “Open conditions enable prisoners to demonstrate they can be trusted. Where this trust is abused, offenders are placed back in closed conditions.”

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