SMUGGLERS TRYING TO GET INSIDE
THIS week Cardiff man James Anthony Anderson, 53, was jailed for his involvement in importing banned items into Bridgend prison.
Police were able to forensically link him to a package containing a mobile phone, synthetic cannabis and tablets including diazepam found in the prison grounds.
He is now starting a 14-month stretch himself behind bars.
His story is just one of many of people going to extreme lengths to smuggle drugs and unauthorised items into jails.
There have been drugs being smuggled in children’s nappies and passed to inmates orally when partners kissed them.
Substances have been thrown over prison walls stuffed in oranges and table tennis balls.
Here are other bizarre ways people have tried to smuggle contraband into Welsh prisons.
An intimate hiding place This is common. Earlier this year inmate Joseph Daly smuggled the psychoactive drug Spice into Cardiff prison – with parcels of it the size of golf balls and wrapped in cellophane, up his backside, Cardiff Crown Court heard.
Judge Stephen Hopkins said: “When asked to squat, three cellophane-wrapped parcels fell from your back passage. This was... something you knew was prohibited in prisons.”
Inside underwear In January 2016 grandad Raymond Brockway took a parcel out of his trousers and secured it on the underside of a chair in the visitor area of HMP Parc, Bridgend.
He was spotted on CCTV when it fell on the floor and he had to reattach it.
Cardiff Crown Court heard that G4S security staff found it to contain small white tablets.
Giving evidence, he said: “Two men approached me outside the prison. I’d never seen them before – they were big blokes.
“They told me I’d better take it in or my son would be in danger and they would deal with me too.”
The court heard 59-year-old Brockway went to visit his stepson Carl Gauci, who was serving a sentence for robbery.
Inside a bra On August 11, 2015, Catherine Cowdry, 39, smuggled drugs into prison in her bra.
She produced the anti-depressants when she was challenged inside Cardiff Prison while visiting an inmate.
“The package contained Subutex and Subuxone tablets which are Class C drugs,” prosecutor Jason Howells told Newport Crown Court. She was jailed for six months.
In the mouth Also in 2015, a woman tried to smuggle drugs into prison for her partner inside her mouth.
The substances Susan Howells, 56, had hidden in her mouth and inside her body were found by sniffer dogs.
Cardiff Crown Court was told her partner had been put under pressure at Bridgend’s Parc Prison to get drugs brought in.
The dogs detected the 12 Buprenorphine tablets she was hiding when she made a prison visit on June 11, prosecutor Julian Greenwood said.
Using drones In November, the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) said there had been a big increase in the number of reported drone incidents over the past year.
Swansea prison alone had three drone incidents between 2014 and 2015.
Prison staff members A prison staff member who smuggled heroin and a mobile phone into a jail was given a six-year sentence in 2014.
Phillip Finselbach, 34, a cookery instructor at Parc Prison, Bridgend, was branded a “chancer” by Judge Daniel Williams at Newport Crown Court.
Finselbach, from Swansea, claimed a prisoner had forced him to do it.
An investigation was launched after a rise in positive results during random drug testing on the B3 wing.
When Finselbach was searched, a mobile phone was found between his buttocks.
He admitted conspiracy to bring a mobile phone and drugs into prison and conveying a mobile phone into prison.
What is being done to tackle the problem? According to the latest Prison Safety and Reform report, the Ministry of Justice is working to combat the rise in drones and mobile phones in prisons and has rolled out new drug-testing.
The report says new dedicated officers, each responsible for around six offenders, will make sure prisoners get the help they need to quit drugs and get skills to turn their lives around.
They will invest to strengthen the frontline with 2,500 additional prison officers by 2018.
A special unit has also been set up to crack down on a surge in the number of drones smuggling drugs and mobile phones into prisons.
Figures reveal there were 33 incidents of drones being detected over prisons in England and Wales in 2015 – a rise from just two in 2014.
What think? Glyn Travis, from the Prison Officers’ Association (POA), said: “One of the biggest problems we face is that we haven’t got the staffing to gather enough intelligence or prevent the use of unauthorised mobile phones – which are at the core of the drug problem.
“Prisons should be installing mobile phone blockers.
“We’ve got around 90,000 people in prisons and a lot of organised criminals. They will spend weeks or months planning ways to overcome security.” do prison officers
What does the prison service say? Director for HMP Parc Janet Wallsgrove said: “These substances are illegal, dangerous and undermine the safety of our team, the prisoners we care for and our regime. This latest conviction sends a strong message to law-breakers.”