Roger Gleaves, a convicted paedophile, today lost a High Court attempt to win damages over ?slopping out? in prisons.

Gleaves, who describes himself as Bishop of Maidstone, had claimed that having to use a bucket as a toilet in his cell breached his human rights.

He sought damages of £2,600 for the alleged human rights breach while he was in Albany prison on the Isle of Wight.

Mr Justice Hickinbottom dismissed the claim in the High Court in London together with two others brought by fellow former Albany inmates Peter Kirby and Desmond Grant.

If Gleaves had been successful it would have resulted in the prison service spending millions of pounds on upgrading conditions for up to 300 other inmates who do not have in-cell sanitation.

Mr Justice Hickinbottom refused permission to appeal against his ruling, but a direct approach can still be made to the Court of Appeal in an attempt to take the case further.

The judge ruled that the conditions in HMP Albany ?did not breach the claimants? rights under Article 3 or Article 8 of the Convention?.

Gleaves, 77, was convicted of the rape of two 14-year-old boys, and is serving a 15-year prison sentence imposed at the Old Bailey in 1998

He was exposed as a paedophile in a 1970 television documentary investigating the plight of young people who ended up on the streets in London after travelling from the North.

All new prisons have a toilet in every cell but in some older prisons where that is unavailable, prisoners operate a call button to ask for their cell to be unlocked so that they can use facilities outside and are released one at a time for between six and ten minutes. The wait depends on how many are in the queue.

The ten prisons where in-cell sanitation facilities are not available are Blundeston in Lowestoft, Suffolk; Bristol; Bulwood Hall, in Hockley, Essex; Coldingley in Surrey; Gloucester; Grendon, in Buckinghamshire; Hewell (Brockhill), in Redditch, Worcestershire; Isle of Wight (Albany); Long Lartin, in Evesham, Worcestershire; and Ranby in Nottinghamshire