Locked up, the drone gang who f lew £1.2m of drugs into jails
A GANG of criminals who used a drone to smuggle weapons, mobile phones and drugs worth £1.2million into prisons have been jailed.
From his cell, armed robber Craig Hickinbottom, 35, organised the flights to sneak illicit packages containing screwdrivers, hacksaw blades and even a Freeview box and remote control over jail walls.
But his 11-strong gang was smashed after a two-year investigation by prison intelligence officers and police.
They were caught deploying the drone by chance, filmed on cameras set up to monitor wildlife outside HMP Hewell in Worcestershire. Footage showed two gang members in a field prepare a drone for flight, before sending it over a hedge into the prison grounds.
The crime ring was convicted of organising 49 remote-controlled flights into jails as far apart as the West Midlands, Yorkshire, Merseyside and Perth, with some devices carrying contraband worth as much as £85,000.
The drones would either deposit the packages to be picked up by inmates or hover outside a cell window for an inmate to pull the package in using a broom handle with a hook attached.
CCTV then showed convicts visiting the cells and walking out with parcels.
Sentencing the gang at Birmingham Crown Court, Judge Roderick Henderson said: ‘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.’
The investigation, which analysed drone and mobile phone data, was part of a national crackdown on drones targeting prisons, where the trade of illicit goods is fuelling growing violence, selfharm and disorder among inmates.
Prison chiefs have said that much of the spiralling trouble has been caused by the illegal supply of drugs and mobile phones, putting inmates in debt and leaving them vulnerable to intimidation.
Prisons minister Sam Gyimah said: ‘It is clear this gang ran a nationwide drugs operation, using sophisticated technology to transport substances into our prisons and heap misery onto the offenders they had in their clutches.’
The HM Prison and Probation Service and West Mercia Police investigation identified drops across the country from July 2015 to November 2016.
The recovered drugs from 15 flights were found to have an estimated value inside prison of up to £370,000. However, there were multiple flights that were not intercepted so the true value of the drugs alone – based on the average size of delivery – was estimated at £1.2million.
On the inside, Hickinbottom’s brother, 50-year-old John – jailed for four years and eight months – helped with distribution.
His cellmate Sanjay Patel used one of the illegal mobile phones which had been flown in.
Ten of the 11 defendants pleaded guilty and one – Yvonne Hay – was found guilty at trial.
Hickinbottom, who directed the ‘large-scale and persistent’ operation from his cell, was jailed for seven years and two months after admitting conspiring to bring contraband into prison, as well as conspiracy to supply psychoactive substances.
Drone pilot Mervyn Foster, 36, of Tipton, West Midlands, was jailed for six years and eight months.
Craig Hickinbottom’s 32-yearold partner Lisa Hodgetts, from Tividale, West Midlands, admitted money laundering and was given a 16-month suspended prison term.
She managed the money on behalf of the gang and ensured everyone was paid. She has accepted that she laundered in the region of £125,000 for the gang.
Police discovered at one point that she paid Foster by giving him a static caravan and plot in North Wales and had told her local authority that she wanted to buy her £72,000 council-owned property outright, despite earning a modest income as a beautician.
John Quinn, 35, of Tipton, West Midlands – described as the ‘righthand man’ – was jailed for four years and eight months.
Terry Leach, 19, of Tipton, was given a two-year suspended jail sentence after being described as a ‘foot soldier’.
Ashley Rollinson, 21, of Brierley Hill, was jailed for 11 months but has already served his sentence on remand. Hay, 41, and her boyfriend, Francis Ward, 46, of Walsall, were both jailed for two years and four months.
A warrant was issued for the arrest of Artaf Hussain, 31, of Tipton, after he failed to attend court. Patel, 37, of Telford, Shropshire, was given a four-month sentence for possession of a mobile phone in prison.
‘Risk of violence and loss of control’