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Prisons 'winning battle' against drugs-to-order drones

Fiona Stalker
BBC Scotland News
BBC A close-up image of a black meta grille fitted over a window at Perth prison. In the distance, other windows show the same grilles.BBC
Grilles have been fitted onto the windows at HMP Perth

Scottish prison bosses say a pilot scheme to combat the problem of drones being used to deliver drugs and weapons into jails is helping to dismantle organised crime networks.

Drones have become a preferred method of delivery for illegal items ordered by inmates.

Drugs, phones and technology have all been smuggled into the Scottish prison estate, with the size of drones and their cargo increasing in recent months.

In January, police reported a crash involving a drone carrying a package of drugs close HMP Edinburgh.

'Every prisoner's wish list'

Inside Perth Prison, unit manager John Baird shows off a six-rotor drone intercepted by staff recently.

It was carrying a load worth up to £10,000 - items that mark the currency of organised crime behind bars.

Laid out on a table is the haul of drugs, syringes, phones and other highly-prized items intended for inmates.

He told BBC Scotland News: "The drone is public enemy number one at the moment.

"This one, we recovered, and we got all the packages as well. They were suspended underneath on a length of fishing line.

"Everybody's wish list is in here. The iPhone is the one we see most often. We have smart phones that are easily concealed.

"We also have phones that can be concealed internally. They're standard dial phones. We've actually had someone swallow one of these in front of us."

A modern drone sits on an office table. Surrounding it are lines of plastic-wrapped syringes, a tennis ball which was stuffed with drugs, bags of pills and some electronic cables.
The six-rotor drone captured by the prison service and some of its haul laid out on the table

He said an iPhone could be worth £5,000 inside a prison.

"We also see dongles, they just need a Sim card and they plug that in and have instant wifi.

"We've also had chip cards which they can put into Xboxes, which turns that into a communications device."

Tobacco is also big on the smuggling list, as is cannabis, but Mr Baird said they have recently found needles, syringes and steroids, as well as street Valium.

Stopping the drones getting in has become a priority and six months ago Perth Prison introduced secure window grilles.

As a result, there have been no drone breaches within that period.

On a rtable, we see a line of three iPhones, four smaller call-only phones, three older iPhone models and several home-made dongles. There is also a small plastic bag full of sim cards - all of which were in the drone's package.
IPhones are prized, but they also found small simple phones, sim cards and dongles

Ian Whitehead, head of operations at the Scottish Prison Service, said: "Drugs and the need for drugs drives debt, violence and a whole range of behaviours that are difficult to deal with.

"This is designed to minimise the introduction and movement of drugs in any meaningful way.

"We've got high hopes for this and we've got a monitoring process, so if there's a weakness, we can adapt to that and engineer a counter-measure."

A side view of the four-storey building housing prisoners in Perth. The image shows how easy it would be to reach the windows by drone, if the metal grilles were not there.
HMP Perth's location made it easy to get drones to drop off "orders" at its windows

Perth has been particularly prone to the drone problem due to its geography. In a semi-rural location, it has a good line of sight and as radio waves travel in a straight line , it is easy for a pilot to move things in.

Mr Whitehead added: "Some of the drones can carry quite large cargoes. So instead of something coming in a tennis ball, you introduce something that's 10 times that. So you've got a big cargo of commodity to come in and that can last a long time."

He said that in his 36 years on the job, drug use had changed from cannabis and heroin to psychoactive substances.

The SPS said it had also installed the grilles in Edinburgh and Glenochil prisons and would consider a broader roll-out in the future as well as specific measures for each location.