Fake legal letters soaked in Spice being smuggled into HMP Berwyn

CHIEF SAYS DETECTION MEASURES STEPPED UP

FAKE legal letters soaked with Spice are being smuggled into HMP Berwyn, an inquest heard.

The Wrexham super jail’s head of custody Rachel James said crafty dealers used the dodgy correspondence to try to get past the prison’s security procedures.

Rachel James told the inquest in Ruthin into the death of HMP Berwyn prisoner Luke Morris Jones of Blaenau Ffestiniog they were barred from opening inmates’ legal letters.

The letters were coated with synthetic, psychoactive substances like Spice and Black Mamba.

The inquest into the death of Jones, 22, heard how he died in March 2018 due to heart failure after smoking the drug (see conclusion in panel below).

He was in the jail serving a four-year sentence for burglary.

Addressing the jury, Mrs James explained how the scam works and what has been done to combat the operations of the dealers.

She said: “Residents can have legally privileged mail.

“It basically designates it as legally privileged. It can be opened but only in the presence of the prisoner.

“Through the mail is one of the most popular ways of smuggling drugs into the prison.”

She said drug detection dogs are also used to sniff the mail but Mrs James said the prison has invested in two sophisticated machines costing £10,000 each which scan the mail and can detect synthetic drugs such as Spice.

The machines were put into use in September 2018.

She said normal mail could be opened, photocopied and handed to prisoners to stop them getting Spice impregnated paper, which is burnt and the vapours smoked.

However there were not enough resources available to do that, so a selection of regular mail and all of the “rule 39” legal mail was put through the machines.

She said the amount of spice being detected had reduced since use of the machines had started.

She said “a large amount” of legal mail sent to the prison was fake.

Any that failed the test were put into safe storage and the prisoner it was addressed to would be informed.

They could then appeal to have it opened.

If after a certain amount of time they didn’t appeal the mail being held back was destroyed.

A full body scanner to check prison visitors will also be in operation at the jail by March 31 next year she told the inquest jury.

Mrs James also revealed the 2,106 person capacity jail was still not full.

Currently there are 1,628 prisoners there.

She said the prison had not been finished when the first inmates arrived and it had been due to be full by now.

She said the “ramp up” to full occupancy had been done more slowly to keep “stability” at the facility (pictured above).

She said the risk of rioting and “our ability to control the population is of primary concern”.

Problems with staff retention and recruitment had also been a factor in the slower filling of the prison, she added.