Delay in Paris suspect’s trial
THE RINGLEADER
A TRIAL involving the lone surviving suspect of the 2015 Paris massacres looks set to be postponed. Salah Abdeslam is due to face charges over a 2016 shooting in Brussels. A GANG who used drones to fly drugs and mobile phones into prisons in Scotland and England were locked up yesterday.
The remote-controlled craft, equipped with a fishing line and hooks, were guided to cell windows, where inmates used tools such as an extendable broom handle to retrieve the contraband.
HMP Perth was among the prisons targeted by the “sophisticated” smuggling operation. But it is understood the bid to fly illicit goods into the jail proved unsuccessful and the drone was recovered.
Overall, the gang were responsible for 49 drone “drops” and four “throw-overs” of goods. The deliveries consisted mainly of psychoactive substances with a prison value of up to £370,000.
Jailing eight of them at Birmingham Crown Court, Judge Roderick Henderson said: “Prisons are difficult enough places to run. They contain people who are dangerous and vulnerable.
“Supplying things into prison that should not be there – drugs, phones, tools and the like – threatens proper management and creates real risks of violence and loss of control and discipline.”
Ringleader Craig Hickinbottom, 35, who directed the “large-scale and persistent” plot from behind bars, was jailed for seven years and two months.
Drone pilot Mervyn Foster, 36, got six years and eight months for his part in the Organised deliveries from behind bars conspiracy. The court heard the offences were committed between July 2015 and May this year at jails in Worcestershire, Staffordshire, Birmingham, Yorkshire, Cheshire, Liverpool and Perth.
Prosecutors said the “commercial operation” mainly involved drugs but tools, phones and even a TV Freeview box were also delivered to order.
CCTV showed prisoners entering the cells where drone deliveries were made and walking out with packages.
Of the drone flights, 34 evaded security and got through, so the true value of the contraband was unknown.
On the outside, payment was made through Hickinbottom’s partner, Lisa Hodgetts, 32, from the West Midlands.
She admitted money laundering and was given a 16-month suspended term.
Hickinbottom, an inmate at HMP Featherstone in Staffordshire and later HMP Hewell in Worcestershire, organised deliveries to both jails.
He admitted conspiring to bring contraband into prison and conspiracy to supply psychoactive substances.
Foster, from the West Midlands, was described as the “prime organiser on the outside”. The petty criminal worked with “right-hand man” John Quinn, 35, who was jailed for four years and eight months.
Hickinbottom’s brother John, 50, was