A CAMPAIGNING group today called on prison bosses to end to the 'shameful' number of inmates committing suicide.

Anita Dockley, the assistant director of the Howard League for Penal Reform, blamed the rising death toll of people taking their own lives during 2003 on the overcrowded jails.

Preston Prison had three self-inflicted deaths, a rise of one, putting it joint third in a 'league table' of suicides.

The figures mean that since November 2000, the prison has had more than a dozen suicides, on a par with Manchester, Leeds and Liverpool prisons.

Last February, convicted burglar Andrew McKee, 32, from Clayton-le-Moors, hanged himself by a sheet in his cell at Preston Prison.

His inquest found that there was a lack of mental health assessment, inadequate monitoring procedures and a lack of communication between multi-disciplinary teams, which contributed to his death.

A doctor who investigated the prison for the Prison Service recommended an urgent review of its mental health services. Anita Dockley said 94 male inmates and 14 woman took their own lives nationally last year.

A third of the prisoners were on remand, a third were aged under 25 and three per cent were immigration detainees.

The most deaths were at Blakenhurst, where five inmates died and then four at Birmingham, Nottingham, Winchester and Styal. Ms Dockley added: "It is shameful that so many men and women in prison take their own lives.

"Yet, sadly, the Howard League does not anticipate the numbers falling while the prison population continues to surge

"The number of prison suicides will only fall when the numbers in prison are radically reduced and the strategies for dealing with suicide and self-harm are properly realised.

"We call on the government to act immediately to reduce the number of people behind bars."

The prison population currently stands at more than 74,000, its highest-ever level.