The increasing number of inmates over the age of 60 is turning some jails into costly "high security nursing homes", a prison reform charity says.

The Howard League for Penal Reform said older inmates had trebled in a decade and numbers were still growing.
Currently, three jails could be filled with older prisoners but the Prison Service has only a handful of male prisons with small wings offering specialist facilities.
In 1993 there were 450 sentenced prisoners aged 60 and over but by 2003 the number had increased to 1,441.