Officer is jailed for smuggling drugs into his prison

A LONG-SERVING prison officer who smuggled drugs and mobile phones into his jail will spend the next 40 months behind bars.

John Wallace, nicknamed “Waldo”, of Nethy Bridge, Speyside, was paid £1,800 to deliver the illegal contraband over a five-month period to help pay off mounting family debts.

He would place the drugs and phones into socks, then into cardboard boxes labelled “Beat the Bosses Mobile Phone” and throw them over the prison wall.

Wallace picked them up on the other side when he was on duty.

Last month at Inverness Sheriff Court, Wallace admitted two charges that between October 27, 2015 and March 18, 2016, he introduced mobile phones, cannabis resin, being prohibited articles and repeatedly threw parcels containing the phones and cannabis over the wall at Porterfield prison in Inverness.

He then collected the items and took them into the jail.

Wallace pled guilty to supplying cannabis.

Sentencing, Sheriff Gordon Fleetwood said: This was a gross breach of trust and both those in prison and your employers should have been able to rely on your integrity.

“But I will take into account the difficulties you will face in prison. I consider five years as appropriate but I will reduce this by a third to one of three years and four months to take into account your early plea.”

The sentence was backdated to February 10.

Wallace’s solicitor advocate, Urfan Dar, said his client was spending 23 hours a day in virtual solitary confinement because of his previous employment.