The premise of Gordon Behind Bars (9pm, C4, 10 July) suggests prisoners working in catering is unprecedented, which it’s not - there’s The Clink Restaurant for a start. One also suspects Ramsay isn’t interested so much in rehabilitating inmates as his reputation (by casting himself in a campaigning light AND burnishing his hard man persona).

But these weren’t the programme’s biggest failings. What really made me uneasy was its determination to raise the prisoners’ hopes, only to dash them - repeatedly. It’s one thing to exploit celebrities or even members of the public, usually with their co-operation. It’s another to exploit people in jail. Yet Ramsay and the prison authorities callously followed this dispute resolution arc.

The disappointment on the Bad Boys’ faces when the authorities refused to supply the security needed for a 6am start, forcing Ramsay to abandon plans to run a lunch delivery service and scale them back to a single product - a lemon treacle slice - was awful. Worse was the casually dismissive attitude of the prison guards and Ramsay’s cynical humiliation of burglar Rene. The guy has OCD, for crying out loud, AND HE’S IN PRISON. What do you expect if you spill food juices on a surface he’s just cleaned?

When Ramsay warned: “I can’t allow any kind of dissent,” you couldn’t help but think Rene was being set up. And wouldn’t you know it, the team was soon down to nine.

Let’s just say, by the end, I was starting to wish it really was Gordon behind bars - and not the prisoners.

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