RAZZELL VERDICT: MURDERER Glyn Razzell has spent the first few nights of his life sentence at Bristol's Horfield Prison.

The Category A prisoner was taken to the high security jail near the city centre on Friday and will stay there indefinitely. But he may eventually go to one of the country's main lifer prisons, which include the notorious Brixton and Wormwood Scrubs high security establisments in London and Portland in Dorset.

The 44-year-old former investments manager with Swindon-based Zurich Financial Services was given the sentence on Friday after a jury at Bristol Crown Court found him guilty of murdering his estranged wife Linda on March 19 last year. He always denied the charge.

The exact length of Razzell's sentence is still unclear.

Murderers are handed mandatory life sentences, but the trial judge, Mr Justice Christopher Pitchers, will now write to home secretary David Blunkett and recommend what he thinks that sentence should be.

Statistics reveal that lifers are released after serving an average of between 13 and 14 years, but remain on licence for the rest of their lives. This means they can be recalled to prison at any time.

Horfield Prison, first opened in 1883, holds around 603 prisoners and its governor, Kevin Lockyer, places great emphasis on inmates confronting their offending behaviour.

The prison runs courses in interpersonal skills, enhanced thinking and focuses heavily on employment.

The country's 143 prisons are currently running at around 96 per cent occupancy and many people die there mostly a result of suicide. Horfield Prison runs a listeners' scheme for those who may be at risk from self harming or killing themselves and some inmates are involved in workshops.

In 2001 Horfield Prison opened a Safe Custody Unit where inmates were offered acupuncture to stop them committing suicide and injuring themselves. The unit has proved popular as a safe environment to anyone who is vulnerable to harassment or assault and acts as a haven to those with poor social skills.

Those on remand are allowed up to three visits each week, but convicted prisoners like Razzell are allowed just one visit a fortnight, but not on Tuesdays or Sundays.

The disgraced pop star Gary Glitter was once an inmate of Hor-field Prison for two-months from November 1999 after being convicted of downloading more than 4,000 images of children from the Internet.

gsheldrick@newswilts.co.uk