‘Zombie’ drug detection machine plans shelved

Fatal accident inquiry told RapiScan installation would be ‘pointless’

The Scottish Prison Service has no plans to install a hi-tech machine which could help prevent so-called “zombie” drugs getting into a jail where two inmates died after taking it, an inquiry heard yesterday.

The fatal accident inquiry at Perth was told there were so many other ways to smuggle drugs into Castle Huntly installing the RapiScan machine would be pointless.

Scottish Prison Service (SPS) solicitor Ross Fairweather told the inquiry, into the death of armed robber Kevin Sloan, the machine had been shown to get results and was being used in several Scottish prisons.

He said: “The machines are designed to detect illicit substances on certain articles, such as clothing or mail.

“One thing they can detect is new psychoactive substances (NPS).

“The report talks about the number of machines, how they work and the success they have had with the machines since they have been introduced.

“It is the intention of the SPS to introduce these machines more widely throughout the prison estate.

“But it’s not the intention of the SPS to introduce such a machine into Castle Huntly.

“The reasons for that... in short, can best be summarised as follows.

“NPS are introduced into most prisons by soaking mail in the substance.

“In closed prison conditions the machine would be put to effective use to detect it but in Castle Huntly that particular method of introducing drugs is not the common practice.

“Owing to it being an open prison, drugs can be entered into Castle Huntly in different manners which would not be detected by the machine.”

Sheriff Pino di Emidio said: “So effectively there’s a whole variety of ways drugs can be introduced into that particular prison.”

He added the installation of the machine would not have had a practical impact on the situation which led to the death of Mr Sloan in February 2016.

The inquiry was told the Paisley convict was killed by the synthetic cannabinoid which was found in his system during a post-mortem.

Mr Sloan, 31, was found to have died on February 27 2016 as a result of taking a combination of heroin and AKB48-N15 (hydroxypentyl).

Sloan was jailed for eight years after firing a shotgun during a post office robbery in Newton Mearns in 2011.

Murderer Thomas Shields also died within Castle Huntly after taking a virtually identical NPS and an inquiry into his death is also taking place.

Shields was just 15 when he bludgeoned James Herd to death in the street with a metal pole and jumped on his head “like a trampoline”.

Judge Lord Hardie branded the killing a “vicious, brutal and unprovoked attack”.

The inquiry continues.

“Drugs can be entered into Castle Huntly in different manners which would not be detected. ROSS FAIRWEATHER