ASYLUM seekers will start arriving at Winchester Prison from this Monday in a controversial move which will be fiercely opposed.

Up to 50 detainees will be held with unconvicted inmates in the remand wing at the jail, as revealed by the Daily Echo before Christmas.

About five or six are expected to arrive daily over the following week, staff have been told.

Jail staff are unhappy that the detainees are being foisted on them when the prison service is not designed to hold people accused of no offences.

The Winchester Action Group for Asylum Seekers, set up in the early 1990s when Kurdish refugees were held at the jail, is meeting to discuss its next step. Its chairman Shirley Firth has condemned the move of 500 refugees into eight jails as "truly awful."

A source at the jail said they had received little information about who they would be holding. "All we know is that there will not be a group of one nationality.

"They are separated as much as possible.

"They will be treated like other prisoners. This has been imposed on us and we have to be professional and flexible. But it is going to be a nightmare and raises a number of problems."

They include communicating with people who may speak little English, who are being held in a potentially volatile mix with English prisoners, and who may feel strong resentment about being treated like criminals.

Staff have had half a day's training from the Immigration Service, which will also hold surgeries with the detainees.

Criticism has also come from the Prison Officers Association and a member of the Board of Visitors, the independent watchdog which monitors conditions at the jail. Anver Jeevanjee said the move was "absolutely horrifying".

"Asylum seekers, victims of trauma and torture, many of them highly skilled, ought not to be jailed with alleged criminals."

Richard Foster, chairman of the BoV, declined to discuss the matter.