Scotland’s only women’s prison held a psychotic inmate in a blood-smeared cell, a woman who set her hair on fire and another who had bitten her arm to the bone, European torture experts have reported.

Researchers at the Council of Europe’s committee for the prevention of torture (CPT) published a damning report on Scottish prisons after inspections of Cornton Vale, Barlinnie, Edinburgh, Grampian and Shotts. They raised “serious concerns” about the inappropriate imprisonment of “severely mentally ill women” at Cornton Vale.

The Scottish Human Rights Commission demanded urgent action to improve the care of mentally ill women in the justice system.

In men’s prisons drug-fuelled inmates carried out an increasing number of attacks on prisoners and wardens. Letters are soaked in new synthetic, psychoactive substances