A “well-organised” gang used drones to fly class A drugs and mobile phones into UK jails, delivering contraband straight to inmates’ windows, a court has heard. It is alleged that Lee Anslow, while he was a serving prisoner at HMP Hewell in Worcestershire, conspired to set up deliveries at prisons around the country, flown in […]
The stability of HMP Birmingham was being adversely affected by the high volume of illicit drugs available, said Peter Clarke, Chief Inspector of Prisons. Prison managers and staff were clearly committed to moving on and making progress after the disturbance last year, he added. Today he published the report of an unannounced inspection of the […]
Prison staff ignore inmates who are under the influence of “legal highs” in a jail where their use is a major problem, according to a watchdog report published today. The Times reported drugs had been found at the rate of ten a month, including very large parcels that had been thrown over the wall, at […]
Oklahoma’s highest criminal court has agreed to halt three upcoming executions after the state’s prison system received the wrong drug for a lethal injection this week. In a unanimous ruling, the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals granted the state’s request and issued indefinite stays of execution for Richard Glossip (left), Benjamin Cole and John Grant. […]
A senior gay police officer who was awarded an MBE has pleaded guilty to possession of drugs, Scotland Yard said. Chief Inspector Paul Cahill, 43, admitted two counts of possession of Class A drugs, one of possession of Class B drug, and one of possession of Class C drug. He was given a conditional discharge […]
A criminal gang carried out a £30 million drug-smuggling operation from their cells – using laptops supplied by the Ministry of Justice to help them prepare for legal cases, and which they managed to tamper with, it has been reported. The plotters even paid more than £1 million to persuade a freelance “fixer” to get […]
Prescribing heroin to addicts could be cheaper than methadone, an expert on addiction has suggested. Professor Martin Schechter, who has long campaigned on the issue, said the drug substitute did not always prove to be effective while heroin treatments have been shown to get people clean as well as reduce harm, lower societal cost and […]
A story published today by the BBC claiming that all prisons in England and Wales are to be fitted with drug detection scanners at a cost of £15M, has been described as “a fiction” by one prisons expert. Mark Leech, editor of The Prisons Handbook – the definitive annual guide to prisons in England and […]
Nick Hardwick HM Chief Inspector of Prisons today published his report on HMP Birmingham, operated bny G4S, in which he said the prison had postitive drug levels of almost 20% almost double the target figure: “When we last visited HMP Birmingham in late 2011 its management had recently transferred from the public sector to G4S […]
The government’s so-called ban on prisoners receiving books is facing a legal challenge, with one prisons expert asserting there is no ban on books at all. The Ministry of Justice and secretary of state Chris Grayling have been criticised over the Earned Privileges Scheme, which sees prisoners banned from receiving books and other items in […]
A former Metropolitan police officer who resigned after testing positive for cocaine use has been given a suspended prison sentence after admitting drug and theft offences, Scotland Yard said. Pc Michael Andrew Johnson , 47, left his post at the Met’s Traffic Garage at Hampton, south west London, after failing a drugs test in May last year, […]
Members of drugs gangs, who worked together to peddle over £1.5m of heroin and cocaine across Lancashire and other parts of the country, have been jailed for a total of 167 years one month. 36 people have now been sentenced as a result of Operation Oak, a covert Lancashire Constabulary Serious and Organised Crime Operation […]