Prison officers tonight hit back at criticism of a flagship jail claiming they were being forced to "warehouse" inmates because of chronic under funding.

Stockton's Holme House Prison was condemned in a report by the Prison Reform Trust for locking prisoners up for the majority of the day and not giving them enough to do.

But the criticisms have enraged the local Prison Officers Association branch which says Holme House is being starved of resources and is "bursting at the seams".

Branch secretary Terry Fullerton claimed the prison was also at least 30 prison officers short of the level it needed to be at.

And he pointed to five suicides at Holme House since January as evidence of its parlous state.

Mr Fullerton said: "It is out of order to criticise the prison when the prison service is not putting the resources in.

"We are warehousing prisoners with there not being the staffing or infrastructure to cope.

"When prisoners are crammed in like they are and there is not enough for them to do that inevitably creates tension and problems."

Holme House, one of the newest prisons in the region having been built in 1992, was originally intended for 650 prisoners but was now holding 995, he said.

Last month about 170 inmates rioted after being denied access to the gym at Holme House because of overcrowding.

It led to one prison officer requiring 15 stitches after being slashed by broken glass and another suffering a broken collar bone.

A spokeswoman for the Prison Service said extra capacity had been added to Holme House since it opened ten years ago.

She said there had in fact been four deaths in custody at the prison, the last one on June 27.

"There are issues with prison capacity throughout the UK and we are looking to solve those.

"But at the end of the day we have no control over the number of people the courts are sending to jail and a set budget with which we do what we can."