Visitor jailed for drug smuggle bid

Package found during strip search

Two months after being freed early from a jail term for a heroin offence, a woman tried to smuggle drugs into Perth Prison as a “favour” for a long-term inmate.

But the illicit transaction - in the visiting area at the Edinburgh Road jail - was caught on CCTV.

And it led to 44-year-old repeat offender Ashley Cussick being jailed for two years when she appeared on indictment at Perth Sheriff Court this week.

The cannabis and etizolam, together worth just over £50, had been handed over to 44-year-old James Gorrie, who is serving a seven-year sentence for brutally stabbing another man and scarring him for life.

He stuffed the package into his underwear as prison officers moved in - and tried to make a run for it. But he was brought to the ground by five officers and overpowered. The stash of drugs fell from his groin area after he was strip searched.

Gorrie, described as a prisoner at Perth, was jailed for a total of 12 months from Tuesday.

He admitted being in possession of the illicit substances at the jail on May 19, 2019, and also attempting to pervert the course of justice.

Cussick, described as a prisoner at Polmont, pled guilty to the more serious charge of being concerned in the supply of the class B and class C drugs the same day.

Depute fiscal Eilidh Robertson told the court Cussick had gone to visit Gorrie that afternoon and they sat opposite each other in the visiting room.

She added: “A member of staff was watching them via a CCTV camera and saw Cussick fumbling in her trouser pocket before passing something over the table to Gorrie.

“He alerted his colleagues as to what he had seen.”

When Gorrie was asked what he had in his hand, he leapt to his feet and appeared to place an item inside his underwear.

As he ran around the visiting area, he was “taken to the ground” and then strip searched in the jail’s segregation area.

The package contained 4.9 grammes of cannabis, worth around £15, and approximately 75 tablets, some of which had been crushed, valued at £37.

Cussick was searched by two police officers who were at the prison on other business.

She was searched but no controlled drugs were found on her.

She told them later under caution, however, that she had handed “dope and valium” to her co-accused.

Solicitor Gary Fowlis, for Gorrie, said his earliest release date is November 9, 2021.

He added: “Unfortunately his life has been punctuated by the use of illicit substances. His position is that the drugs were for his own personal consumption.”

Lawyer David Duncan said his client had her “own difficulties” with drugs.

“She thought she was doing him (Gorrie) a favour but accepts it was foolhardy in the extreme and there was precious little chance of avoiding detection,” he said.

Passing sentence on Cussick, Sheriff Lindsay Foulis noted that she had been freed early, on home detention curfew, after serving only seven months of a two-year prison sentence.

The Perth Prison incident had taken place just a “couple of months” later.

Gorrie had been previously jailed for seven years for assaulting Steven Stewart to his “severe injury, permanent impairment and to the danger of his life.”