JESSICA AND HOLLY: THE TWO ACCUSED: WATCHED 24 HOURS

TWO hand-picked female prison warders take turns to sit on high stools watching Maxine Carr through a tiny panel in the door and another to the side.

Outside in the grounds of the North London prison a new 24-hour CCTV camera system has been hastily installed and teams of guards with Alsatian dogs patrol the grounds.

The furniture in Carr's 6ftx8ft cell is made from cardboard, designed to break under pressure so she cannot harm herself.

It is the biggest security operation Holloway has seen for a decade, and so far has cost around pounds 9,000.

All this to protect one solitary prisoner who is five feet nothing, weighs about six stone and looks like a teenager.

"There's no way anyone can get to her - she is in a fortress within a fortress," said an insider.

There are no home comforts for Carr, 25, who is constantly tearful.

The walls are bare and the green-tiled floor is cold and impersonal. There is a harsh metallic hand basin and flushing toilet.

Around the cell are a few clothes, books and toiletries. Carr's single bed has two white cotton sheets, a blanket and a pillow. Inside her cell she can read, listen to the radio or write letters. She wears standard prison attire - tracksuit bottoms and a T-shirt - and is let out of the cell to have a shower or bath.

As an added measure other prisoners in the 11 or so cells in the segregation unit where Carr resides have been moved back to the main jail.

When Carr was led to her cell on Wednesday the other prisoners screamed: "Kill the bitch." Throughout the day and night the hardened women - some serving life for crimes which also made the headlines - howl threats and obscenities at her.

"The governor is frightened in case something happens," said the insider. "Only last Sunday one inmate hung herself. But Carr is watched the whole time.

"When she was interviewed on reception at the prison she was very polite and seemed calm."

Carr is also said to have been given a special area to exercise in a flower garden which is not overlooked.

Most days Carr wakes at around 7.30am then collects her breakfast about 8am from a servery along the corridor.

She eats the same food as the other prisoners, but she isn't eating much. The doctor visits her daily at about 9.45am followed by the governor around 11.30am.

A staff smoking room is being converted for her visitors so she does not have to mix with other prisoners.

But it appears that so far there have been no friends or family come to visit.

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