An emergency scheme allowing the Ministry of Justice to take over police cells and use them to lock up offenders has been triggered in the county due to overcrowding.

Canterbury Crown Court's most senior judge, Simon James, revealed this morning that HMP Elmley on the Isle of Sheppey has “reached capacity” and Operation Safeguard has been put into place.

The government contingency plan was created to deal with prison overcrowding.

It involves the temporary use of police cells to provide the immediate additional capacity needed to ensure the smooth running of the prison system.

Alerting barristers to the situation this morning, Judge James said: "As you may be aware, Operation Safeguard was implemented in Kent last week because HMP Elmley has reached capacity and that is causing problems all across the county.

"I have been assured that those defendants housed there involved in trials, and therefore have to come out and go back, will be guaranteed a place at the prison and hopefully we are not going to find ourselves with defendants being sent to police stations.

“That will happen with other defendants remanded into custody."

But he said there would be "a knock-on effect" in respect of prison vans transporting inmates to court as there was a need to "scoop up those displaced".

On November 30 last year the Minister of State for Prisons, Parole, and Probation, Damian Hinds, explained the triggering of Operation Safeguard was not an “unprecedented move”.

He said: “It is an established procedure that has been used before to ensure that our prison system can operate effectively and safely during periods of high demand.

“It last happened in 2006, and then in 2007 to 2008.

“The activation of Operation Safeguard will ensure that His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service and police forces can jointly plan how and where those places will be accessed.”

He added that the scheme gave the prison service “additional headroom”, adding “physical capacity is one side of the coin and staffing is the other, which is why we are putting so much emphasis on recruitment and retention in the prison service”.

An MOJ spokesperson said: “We will always ensure we have enough prison places to deliver sentences handed down by the courts.

“We activated Operation Safeguard as a temporary measure to ensure we have sufficient space each night to lock up offenders while we press ahead with delivering 20,000 additional prison places.”