THE FACEBOOK FREE-FOR-ALL IN SCOTS JAILS

Outrage as prisoners use social media to target victims

SOARING numbers of prisoners are using social media to intimidate and mock their victims.

The use of sites such as Facebook and Twitter by inmates is being reported at a rate of more than one a week.

Convicts access accounts from behind bars to mock victims, boast about their crimes or highlight ‘soft-touch’ conditions in jail.

In some cases, gangsters even use smuggled smartphones to operate their criminal empires from their prison cells.

Yesterday, critics demanded the introduction of 24-hour signal-jamming technology to prevent prisoners from flouting the rules.

Jail officials already have technology to stop the illegal accessing of social media sites via banned mobile phones – but the Mail understands that most prisons do not have it activated at all times.

Scots Tory justice spokesman Liam Kerr said: ‘Prisoners should not have any access to social media, for obvious reasons, so this revelation is both worrying and frustrating.

‘Prison officers are to be commended for managing to track and close accounts, but it will be increasingly difficult to provide the

thorough surveillance required to prevent these breaches happening.

‘The SNP must ensure the Scottish Prison Service (SPS) has enough staff, training and time to adequately monitor prisoners.

‘The Scottish Tories have repeatedly called for signal-jamming technology to be introduced to prevent smuggled mobile phones being used for improper purposes.’

SPS figures show there were 98 cases of alleged social media use by prisoners last year and up to the end of August of this year, when the Mail lodged a freedom of information request – a period of 84 weeks.

In 48 of those cases, no action was taken ‘as a result of the profile not being active or the SPS was unable to locate a profile attributed to a prisoner’. All other profiles were removed. Jail officials liaise with the sites involved to have prisoner profiles taken down but there can be delays before this is achieved. In the meantime, criminals are free to post dangerous, criminal and inappropriate content online at will.

Images taken on a smuggled smartphone emerged online in August, showing prisoners relaxing in the sunshine in the yard of HMP Grampian in Peterhead, Aberdeenshire.

Another photograph appeared to show inmates playing cards on a pool table, while one post contained a brief video clip in which a prisoner is referred to as a ‘grass’.

They appeared on a Facebook page under a false name, Robert Dons, and the jail was referred to as ‘The Grampian Resort’.

The profile was allegedly linked to Robert Wemyss, who was 22 when he was jailed for ten years in March 2013 for trying to run over three police officers in a stolen BMW. He was found guilty of attempted murder, dangerous driving and car theft. The profile has since been deleted.

The SPS said it was investigating the illegal possession of a mobile phone at the prison, which is a criminal offence.

It is understood the SPS matched the Robert Dons profile to Wemyss.

Jail bosses are struggling to crack down on smuggled phones, which convicts also use to direct criminal operations from behind bars.

Prisoners are also becoming more techsavvy and are increasingly shifting to sending communications and video over encrypted group messaging services such as WhatsApp, which makes it harder for the authorities to identify transgressions.

Last year, John Reid, 24, who killed a man with one punch, sparked outrage after sharing pictures of himself inside Saughton Prison in Edinburgh and boasting about beating the system.

Penal system sources say that members of the public, including crime victims, sometimes ‘frame’ prisoners by setting up Facebook pages apparently in their names, in an effort to get them into trouble – which complicates the way such cases are handled.

Prisoners are banned from updating their Facebook accounts while serving their sentence, and prohibited from asking others to do so from outside jail.

Signal jamming is used in Scottish jails but it is understood that it may not be activated at all times in all prisons, thereby allowing prisoners with phones to log on to social media sites.

An SPS spokesman said: ‘Where we are aware of people using a social media profile in prisons, we will always take action to get them removed.’