HMP Fosse Way: Life inside ‘Hell’
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HMP Fosse Way is a Category C resettlement prison that opened in 2023 and is operated and built by Serco. Since it opened, it has made headlines over allegations of misconduct in public office, drug usage, and the deaths of several inmates.
On 28 September 2025, the Leicester Gazette was sent an anonymous letter from a concerned relative of an inmate at HMP Fosse Way. The relative raised allegations including environmental and safety concerns affecting prisoners.
The letter was unusual because tip-offs are typically submitted by email. It read: “I have a relative in HMP Fosse Way. I’d like to report ongoing environmental health issues there… I appreciate that these issues may be considered punishment, but I’d like to make the general public aware of the conditions.”
The writer claimed that vermin problems were widespread, writing that “rats and mice infestation is rife.” The letter also alleged that, during a September 2025 visit, mice were seen in the visitors’ hall, causing panic among visitors and inmates, and that food bought by inmates had been “half-eaten by vermin.” They said reports about these problems were ignored.
In a separate account, an inmate named Bradley, told the Inside Times in March, that the prison was “unclean” and described his first two months there as “the beginning of my two months in hell.” Bradley said he later felt safer after being moved to another prison.
This prompted months of research and interviews. Access to sources was difficult. Many people who we spoke to refused to go on the record, fearing reprisals or harm to future employment. Nonetheless, we have decided to publish what we've found.
A former prison officer agreed to speak anonymously to help shed light on what they described as a culture of fear, shortcomings in recruitment, unsafe staffing levels, and repeated pleas for safety being ignored – warnings that, according to those we spoke to, may have contributed to preventable deaths.
## Cheated entry tests, a climate of fear, and a murder conviction
We sat down with Officer X, whose name we are withholding. Officer X worked at HMP Fosse Way between 2023 and 2024 and said they applied online before moving to Leicester. “At the time, they were kind of giving the job to anybody. That was the point. I mean, I have qualifications, but they weren't really asking for any qualifications. You don’t need to have worked in a prison, or the police or security before.
“The training centre,” Officer X said, “left you in the room alone with a laptop. And then you do two tests, one's maths and one logic. And I started getting a bit stuck in some of them, so I just opened up another window and asked Google.” Officer X said the recruitment, in their view, was “pretty flimsy.”
They said trainees were also assessed through exercises including an agility test, a shield test, and a grip test, alongside vetting. But they said that trainees were allowed to start training before vetting was complete.
Officer X described the training environment as intimidating and unsafe. They said, “training lasted for months” and was run by prison officers, some of whom, they claimed, had warnings or disciplinary history. Officer X said that trainers had previously been involved in incidents of violence – including one who had beaten a prisoner – and that trainees were singled out and threatened.
“There was a constant threat of if you make one mistake, they're throwing you out – just a total climate of fear,” they said.
Officer X also said they later learned that a new hire who had been on the training course had murder convictions.
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## ‘One officer for every 60 inmates’
Within a matter of months, HMP Fosse Way was nearing capacity at 1,700 inmates. By this point, Officer X has started working in the prison.
“They've filled it up more quickly than any prison to date. You should have 20 custody officers in those different areas, or one officer to every 20 inmates. Legally, in exceptional circumstances, you can get away with two officers without being closed down. Most of the time, it came down to one for every 60 prisoners.”
As a result of being short-staffed, Serco brought in additional staff from Doncaster, however, according to Officer X, this only stoked tensions between staff and inmates.
“These guys who were coming in… were basically showboating,” Officer X said, “They were surrounded by staff who have never worked in a prison before, a lot of them were young women and these guys had come from category A or B prisons. They were saying things like ‘guess what I did today’ or ‘I wonder who I'm going to wind up today’, just because they could. Staffing was a big issue, and it wasn’t a safe situation.”
Serco’s vision for HMP Fosse Way was to change how prisons operate. This vision proposed that inmates were fully integrated during their time there. While this might sound good in theory, it soon led to preventable deaths.
Officer X said: “The reality is, it was good on the paper to win the contract. But actually, it didn’t work.
“Normally, you'd have violent criminals over there,” they said. “And non-violent criminals over here. Sex offenders, paedophiles, etc would be completely separate… Because otherwise, what happens is the violent ones, they go and kill the other ones.”
On 23 September 2024, Nigel Feckey, a sex offender, killed himself after being bullied and attacked by other inmates at HMP Fosse Way. Assistant coroner Dianne Hocking said Feckey was “primarily let down by the custodial system”. Hocking warned the Ministry of Justice at the time that more deaths would occur unless they took action to keep vulnerable prisoners safe.
Officer X also had experienced several inmates asking for help over their personal safety. They said: “There was a guy, he'd been complaining or begging for help for weeks that a bunch of guys were going to kill him. He said, ‘they're after me, they're going to kill me.’
“The first thing I did was I went to the manager of the block,” Officer X said. “And she said to me: ‘oh, that guy, yeah, he can f**k off’… She'd already been told by multiple officers. To my knowledge, nothing further was done.”
## ‘I was thankful to be moved’
In March, Bradley – who was an inmate at HMP Fosse Way in October 2025 – told the Inside Times: “the first thing I noticed was how unclean the place was, especially the cell-washing facilities, bedding and towels, I was given pre-owned property, which I did not expect as the prison is only two years old. This was the beginning of my two months in hell.”
He also spoke about how his experience of feeling unsafe went unchecked by staff, and said he felt safer after being moved to a different prison.
Bradley said: “I moved to D-wing, which I can only describe as a jungle – I could not find one member of staff who was sincerely interested in trying to help me. Self-harm is a massive factor. I am now in HMP Oakwood, and I can honestly say that I am thankful for the move. I have been through a lot of distress but now I feel a lot safer.”
However, not all inmates were as lucky as Bradley. On 6 August 2025, 42-year-old Dennis Green was killed by a fellow inmate. Damien Ward, the attacker, claimed at the time of arrest that he believed he was under threat due to a debt owed over vapes.
Both the prosecution and the defence of the case agreed that Ward had been ‘put onto the violence by others’ and the defence acknowledged that, at the time, the attacker was self-isolating and had been without medication for a week.
In a later interview, Officer X confirmed to us that it was a regular occurrence for inmates to go without prescribed medication, sometimes for weeks at a time.
“The place was just chaos. Prisoners without toilet paper. Prisoners who have daily medication, which they go down to this pharmacy in the morning to collect. And this would happen day after day, inmate after inmate. ‘We haven't got it. We haven't got that one today.’ It's supposed to be pre-ordered and ready for them. So, you've got prisoners with all sorts of illnesses. And they're not getting their medications.”
They went on to explain that while some officers were borrowing items from other blocks to try to help inmates get access to essential items, some were bringing contraband in on night shifts.
Officer X said: “After 8pm, the officers who were in charge of checking you weren’t there anyway. Generally, any officers on night shift would just walk straight through, and you could bring whatever you liked in.”
Following an unannounced inspection in March 2025, the prison inspectorate found that there were 360 new charges brought against prisoners each month, most of which were for possession of unauthorised articles, incidents of violence and positive drug test results.
“I know that there were mobile phones in there [among other things] because inmates had them. Around the time I left, they were installing machines which could detect mobile phones being used. But they were in there”.
In response to our findings, a Serco spokesperson said: “As with all premises where food is prepared or stored, we are visited regularly by Environmental Health. There was evidence of mice in the prison shop which we addressed promptly and added preventative measures, working with a pest control company.”
Serco said they do not, and have never had, a problem with rats in the prison or an issue with pests in the prison kitchen, where fresh food is prepared.
Speaking of Bradley's account in the Inside Times, the spokesperson said: “We've thoroughly investigated all of the allegations made in the letter and none of them are true.”
Regarding vetting, staffing and training, they said: “All trainees undergo HMPPS [His Majesty's Prison and Probation Service] vetting while they undertake their initial training course. No one can work as a prison custody officer before their vetting is completed. We operate the prison at the appropriate staffing levels.
“We do not recognise these claims. No trainer working at HMP Fosse Way has been suspended under these circumstances.”
The spokesperson concluded: “As with all deaths in custody, we take on board recommendations made by the coroner.
“We have robust complaints and safeguarding procedures in place for prisoners to raise concerns, including through a private in-cell messaging system.”
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