Burglar tried to smuggle phone into prison hidden up his backside
ABURGLAR had ten months added to his prison sentence after he was caught smuggling a phone into jail.
Aaron Hood, 23, from Rochdale, hid the device up his backside before he appeared in court, realising he would be sent to prison.
But the secreted device was picked up by an x-ray machine and and now a judge has lengthened his sentence.
Hood wrapped the phone in tissue and clingfilm and then inserted it before his he appeared at Manchester and Salford Magistrates’ Court on December 20.
The magistrates gave Hood an 18 week jail sentence for house burglary, assault and harassment before he was transferred to the privately-run Forest Bank prison in Salford.
In the jail’s reception centre, he told prison staff he didn’t have any banned items.
But when an x-ray machine buzzed he was forced to admit his contraband cargo.
“Asked again if he had anything else, he removed a mobile phone from his bottom area wrapped in tissue and clingfilm. He admitted the phone was his property,” prosecutor Neil Beckwith told Manchester Crown Court.
The court heard tthe problem of smuggled phones is ‘acute’ at Forest Bank. Our sister paper the M.E.N. has published a series of stories featuring videos shot by inmates using smuggled smartphones before being shared on social media.
Judge Andrew Long dismissed Hood’s claim that he had not intended to smuggle the phone into prison, alleging police had seized and not returned phones to him during previous arrests.
He decided he would ‘leave it where it was’ when police took him to court, according to his defence barrister Adam Roxborough.
“I’m not sure I believe a word of that,” the judge told the defendant.
Mr Roxborough admitted his client’s ‘conse- quential thinking skills are lacking in the extreme’ and asked the judge to consider ‘a more constructive disposal’ by imposing a suspended prison sentence.
But Hood, of Mitchell Hill, Rochdale, was handed a 10-month prison sentence after he admitted bringing a prohibited item into prison.
Judge Long told him: “You know smuggling phones into prison is a serious offence.
“Mobile phones can be used to allow prisoners to continue their criminal activities while in prison and intimidate witnesses.
“And you know they have a very high value inside prison.
“This problem is particularly acute at Forest Bank and possession of a phone is a serious threat to prison discipline.
“You knew the value of the phone in my judgement and had planned to smuggle it into prison.”