LEEDS has been named as the most overcrowded prison in England and Wales.

The Category B jail, which holds many Bradford prisoners either on remand awaiting court proceedings or serving sentences, has almost twice as many inmates as it was designed for.

Originally designed for 669 prisoners, the jail was holding 1,218 at the of January.

The scale of the problem is laid bare in new data from the Ministry of Justice.

Analysing the information, the Howard League of Penal Reform says three in four men's jails are holding more people than they were designed for.

The League says jails have been forced to cram more people into cells as prisoner numbers have grown and other jails have closed.

Doubling-up or trebling-up in cells is also spotlighted as a major concern.

The League says increased overcrowding has coincided with staff cuts and a rise in the number of suicides, self-harm incidents and violent attacks behind bars.

Only last month, two prison officers were taken to hospital after being hurt in an incident at Leeds Prison. Some inmates were also injured and they were treated at the scene.

The MoJ, which said the incident, which was exclusively revealed by the Telegraph & Argus, was dealt with quickly, started an investigation.

Further MoJ figures, obtained by the Howard League under the Freedom of Information Act, also reveal the extent to which prisoners were ‘doubled-up’ or ‘trebled-up’ in cells to make more room.

‘Doubling’ is the term used by the MoJ to describe holding two people in a cell designed for one.

‘Trebling’ refers to the practice of holding three people in a cell meant for two.

Data for 2013/14 shows that, on a typical day, almost 19,000 prisoners were doubled-up and about 800 were trebled-up.

Doubling was most common in Wandsworth prison in London, where almost 1,100 men on average were made to share cells designed for one.

But doubling or trebling was also the norm in many other prisons, including Doncaster, which is also commonly used to house prisoners from the Bradford district , Birmingham, Nottingham, Preston, Altcourse, Forest Bank, Durham, Manchester, Pentonville and Lincoln.

Frances Crook, chief executive of the Howard League for Penal Reform, said: “Caging men in squalor with nothing to do all day is never going to help them become law-abiding citizens on release.

“Far too many people are being sent into already overcrowded jails and the need to stem the flow is now urgent.

“Government must get a grip on a prison system in crisis that is feeding the crime problem and creating more victims."

Other prisons with huge overcrowding problems include Doncaster, Preston and Durham.

Responding to the survey, Prisons Minister Andrew Selous said: "We always have enough space within our prisons to accommodate all offenders, and will never be in a position where we can't imprison those sentenced by the courts.

"All prisons have safe population levels and published statistics show that crowding is at its lowest levels since 2007/08.This Government has considerably increased the adult male prison capacity from the level inherited at the end of the last Parliament."