The Celtic League has asked a European anti-torture committee to investigate allegations of human rights infringements at the island’s prison.

Bernard Moffatt, the League’s assistant general secretary, has forwarded the allegations to the head of the Council of Europe’s Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CPT).

Concerns about treatment of prisons held in quarantine in the isolation wing at Jurby jail were first highlighted by island advocate Ian Kermode.

The prison has gone into lockdown to prevent this risk of Covid spreading among inmates and staff.

As part of this, all new arrivals at the prison are held in self-confinement in cells on B-wing for 14 days.

But Mr Kermode claims they have ben denied access to showers, exercise and telephone calls - claims denied by the prison authorities.

Alerting the CPT to the advocate’s concerns, Mr Moffatt quotes a statement from the committee relating to coronavirus.

In it, the CPT said it acknowledged the clear imperative to take firm action to combat Covid-19, but warned that ’protective measures must never result in inhuman or degrading treatment of persons deprived of their liberty’.

In his letter to the committee, Mr Moffatt claimed the Manx police and courts have pursued a ’vigorous policy of detention, trial and imprisonment’ for a number of Covid regulation breaches.

He called on the CPT to enquire into Mr Kermode’s allegations and to restate directly to the UK and Manx governments the committee’s ’principles’ in respect of coronavirus.

Mr Kermode said clients who have been remanded in custody or jailed have described conditions on the isolation wing as ’cruel and degrading’.

But the Department of Home Affairs described his claims as ’quite simply wrong and an inaccurate portrayal of the prison’. It said the governor has acted to ensure the safety of everyone in the jail.