Ghislaine set for hellhole jail in New York

GHISLAINE Maxwell could be sent to a grim jail that a former warden has called ‘one of the most troubled, if not the most troubled facility’ in the United States.

Maxwell could be taken to Brooklyn’s Metropolitan Detention Centre early this week before her formal arraignment in New York.

She will avoid the Metropolitan Correctional Centre in Manhattan where Jeffrey Epstein hanged himself last August while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges. But her new home will be just as awful. The nine-storey facility is on a desolate industrial estate in a former port district.

Former inmates have alleged they were subject to indiscriminate beatings and strip searches. They have claimed they were under lockdown for 23 hours a day and that the lights inside their cells were never turned off.

Alleged terrorists imprisoned after the September 11 attacks said that guards slammed them face-first against walls and told them they would die in secret.

Last year, the prison had no heating for a week during the winter and some of the 1,600 inmates were seen banging on their windows for help.

Some prisoners went on hunger strike and alleged they were pepper-sprayed by guards or had their toilets disabled in retaliation.

Among those to have spent time at the Brooklyn jail is British Al Qaeda terrorist Abid Naseer who was jailed for 40 years for plotting bomb attacks in New York and on the Arndale centre in Manchester.

Maxwell is likely to be under 24-hour surveillance to ensure that she lives to face a trial because Epstein hanged himself while awaiting his trial.

The only consolation for her is that if she is on a higher floor she will have views of New York Harbour – through the bars of her cell.