Former tennis star Boris Becker has told Sky News he was “shocked” by widespread drug use and overcrowded conditions during his time behind bars in the UK.
Becker claimed there weren’t enough officers to manage nearly 2,000 inmates at London’s Wandsworth Prison, where he was jailed for hiding £2.5m of assets and loans to avoid paying his debts.
The 57-year-old German told The UK Tonight With Sarah-Jane Mee: “Who’s controlling who? It’s just so overcrowded.”
In his new book about life on the inside, he says the “wardens are in charge until they weren’t”.
He told Sky News: “Mine was a white-collar crime, as they say, but my next-door cell neighbour was a murderer, opposite was a paedophile and on the right there were people smugglers and serious drug dealers.
“Everyone is together, so naturally there’s friction.”
‘You could get pretty much everything’
The former sportsman, who won Wimbledon three times, was in HMP Wandsworth for several weeks as part of his sentence and was released from jail in December 2022.
He served just eight months of a two-and-a-half-year jail term but was deported afterwards despite having lived in the UK for a decade.
Becker said it was an eye-opener that it was possible for some prison inmates to get hold of contraband.
“I didn’t know you could get pretty much everything inside,” he said.
“I’m talking about the drugs, talking about small phones, talking about food – whatever you wanted. Even a bit of alcohol on the weekends.”
“That shocked me,” he admitted.
“The most common drug on the inside was called spice, I’d never heard of it before,” said Becker, adding: “Everyone knows who’s doing what, it’s just a lot of people choose to look away.”
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Spice is a synthetic drug that is incredibly strong and addictive, and has been a problem in prisons for a number of years.
It is understood that there were 240 prison officers available for duty at the time Becker was in prison in Wandsworth. He was one of about 1,500 prisoners at the jail.
A Ministry of Justice spokesperson said: “The government inherited a prison system in crisis overcrowded, crumbling infrastructure and our hard-working prison staff at risk of violence and harm.
“We have already taken action to improve safety, security, and conditions at HMP Wandsworth. We have deployed specialist staff and will redirect £100m to be spent over five years.”
