DAVID IRVING’S world shrank yesterday to 10m by 10m. These are the dimensions of the cells in Josefstadt jail, Vienna, his likely home for the next three years.

As he swaggered into the courtroom, Irving was quite pleased with his lot. His detention cell, he said, had given him the “necessary peace to work on my memoirs”. He made it sound like a scholar’s dream, a kind of sabbatical paid for by the Austrian State. But by last night that cell looked less attractive. Library privileges will be restricted and the prison governor has removed all copies of Irving ’s books from the shelves. If he wants to complete his memoirs and other books — the next debunking Churchill and another analysing Himmler — he will need a great deal of outside help. There is no regular internet access in Josefstadt and his mail is likely to be more tightly controlled.

In detention since November 11, he has been allowed to receive as many as 200 pieces of fan mail a week. As a convicted criminal, he will have his mail monitored carefully.

There are three meals a day at Josefstadt, fish on Fridays and — if so inclined — kosher food, too. He has already complained that the room in which 70 inmates eat is “half the size of my drawing room in Mayfair”.

At the age of 67, Irving will not be expected to perform manual labour but a traditional post for more elderly inmates is to sort out the books.

But the biggest punishment will be separation from his 12-year-old daughter Jessica. He mentioned her twice yesterday, perhaps to sway the mainly female jury. “I love her very much,” he said in his opening statement.

“What would you tell your daughter about the Holocaust?” the judge, Peter Liebtreu, asked him. For once Irving was lost for words.