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WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has gone from hiding out in tiny quarters at the Ecuadorian embassy to cooling his heels in the most overcrowded clink in the UK.
Assange was transferred Thursday evening to Wandsworth Prison, a 1,628-prisoner facility that’s one of the largest in Western Europe, which also houses Jack Shepherd, a well-known recaptured fugitive in the UK known as the “speedboat killer,” the Sun reported.
The prison, formerly known as the Surrey House of Correction, was built in 1851, and its residential areas remain in the original buildings, according to a government website. But it has been significantly refurbished and modernized since 1989, when plumbing and electricity were added to cells, as well as privacy screens for those occupied by more than one inmate.
Back in 1870, toilets were removed from the prison’s cells to make room for extra prisoners, launching the practice of “slopping out,” according to Old Police Cells Museum. The unsanitary practice finally came to an end in 1996.
Wandsworth was deemed the country’s most overcrowded prison during its 2018 inspection, Agence France-Presse reported. Investigators at the time discovered that “most prisoners share a cell designed for one person” and upwards of a third “were receiving psychosocial help for substance misuse problems.”
Notable prisoners include Ronald Biggs, who was part of the gang involved in the 1963 Great Train Robbery of a Royal Mail train heading from Glasgow to London. He escaped Wandsworth by scaling a 30-foot wall with three other prisoners, according to the BBC.
And back in 1930, inmate James Edward Spiers committed suicide by leaping head-first from his first-floor cell at Wandsworth to the floor below, the Social History Society said. He died of a compound skull fracture.
Assange, who was arrested Thursday at his embassy hideout, where he had spent the past seven years under political asylum, will appear at Southwark Crown Court on May 2, according to the Sun.



