Presentazione

da "www.dailymail.co.uk"

By Christopher Leake
Last updated at 1:02 AM on 13th September 2009

Record numbers of contraband mobile phones and SIM cards, which prisoners use to plan crimes from their cells, are being found inside jails.

Prisons Minister David Hanson has revealed that 4,132 mobile phones and 4,352 SIM cards were seized in the year to the end of March 2009 – equivalent to one phone and card for every 20 prisoners and more than four times the amount found three years ago.

Mr Hanson conceded that the figures would be even higher because they excluded phones retained by police for evidence.

The total of 8,484 finds is a 310 per cent increase on the 2,068 seizures in 2006. This rose to 3,672 in 2007 and 7,288 in 2008.

The mobiles and SIM cards are often smuggled into prisons by relatives or friends visiting inmates, hidden in their clothes or in presents. Some have been thrown over prison walls, and there have even been instances of prison officers taking them in.

Last month, convicted drug dealer George Moon was jailed for a further 18 years after using a mobile phone to run an international cocaine ring from his cell at Lindholme prison in Doncaster, South Yorkshire.

Moon, 62, who was already serving 14 years for importing cocaine, used the mobile to contact Leo Morgan from Birmingham, an inmate at El Renacer prison in Panama, as part of a plot to smuggle cocaine with a street value of £300,000 into the UK.

After Moon admitted importing cocaine using DHL and Royal Mail Parcelforce, Judge Bryn Holloway said it ‘beggars belief’ how Moon was able to access a mobile phone and two SIM cards in jail.

Liberal Democrat Justice spokesman David Howarth said last night: ‘These figures are a clear indication that our prison system is awash with illicit mobile phones.

'The huge increase may be due to better searching, but there is a real fear that the phones found are just the tip of the iceberg.

‘The ready availability of mobiles and drugs are a clear indication of how our prisons are out of control. Phones are the key tool used by prisoners to supply drugs both inside and outside prison walls.

‘It is a year since the Blakey Review made some excellent recommendations to curb drug use and mobile use in prisons, but too little has been done. Ministers must act.’

The Ministry of Justice says it is strengthening security at prisons to prevent mobiles and SIM cards being smuggled in and is supplying technology, such as phone signal blockers, to stop inmates using them.