Inmate gives a tour of his cell live on Instagram
WHEN social media star Aliyah Maria Bee answered an online call while live streaming to hundreds of fans, she expected just another chat.
But she was visibly stunned when the caller said he was speaking from prison – and gave her a tour of his cell, bragging about his “comfortable” life.
Yusuf Ademola, 27, spent 17 minutes showing off his gold chain, watches, expensive trainers, TV and Playstation in an Instagram broadcast via a contraband mobile phone. He even produced a certificate showing that he was HMP Pentonville strong man 2017.
Bee said his cell looked “bigger than most people’s uni dorms” and questioned whether he would want to be freed. Ademola, of East London, was jailed for 12 years in December after police found a shotgun and ammunition hidden behind a bedroom cupboard.
Ademola refused to give his name during the call but his sister, who did not give her name, later confirmed it was him. She told The Daily Telegraph: “He hated living here and was happy to go to jail. People in this country don’t have compassion for his situation.”
A prison spokesman said: “This behaviour is completely unacceptable and the content is being removed from social media. Anyone who breaks prison rules faces more time behind bars.”
Ademola gave Bee and her live audience of more than 700 a tour of the cell he shares with another cellmate, and called it “HMP Cribs” after the TV show MTV Cribs in which celebrities show camera crews around their mansions. Among items he showed off was a stereo system, a flat screen TV, DVDS and a games console, which he joked was the yet-to-be-released Playstation 5.
Clad in a fluffy hooded dressing gown, he showed off two watches and his gold chain saying “we got the jewels”. He also held up some Air Jordan trainers, which retail for £100 a pair. The display prompted Bee to tell him: “You’re living the dream. This is the pengest (best) jail I’ve ever seen”.
Bee, who has more than 100,000 Instagram fans, selects random followers to join her on the platform’s two-person live-stream function. In March, she unwittingly selected the prisoner. When the stream started, she said he appeared to be in a hurry. He then revealed his cell door and said: “I can’t be here for long, yeah. Man’s in HMP Pentonville, blud.” When she suggested he might not want to be released from his well-furnished confines, he replied: “Of course I want to come out. Hey, listen. I’m just trying to live comfortable”.
But he did find time to offer Bee’s young viewers some advice: “Don’t come to jail, number one. And number two, if you do come, just be yourself.”
Liz Truss, the former justice secretary, was last year criticised for going “soft on crime” and presiding over “holiday camp” jails. Inmates were seen with drugs and alcohol and were entitled to TVS and games consoles as a reward for good behaviour. However, thousands of mobile phones are smuggled in and inmates have boasted that life in jail is a “doddle”, while some admit to reoffending just to get back in.