Jail warders get to the bottom of phone smuggling racket

Apr 27 2008 By Billy Paterson

Con Used Hidey Hole

A PRISONER was caught hiding a contraband mobile phone up his backside - when warders dialled the number.

The cheeky inmate had no option but to surrender the handset when staff heard his ring tone.

A jail insider said: "They had long suspected he had a phone but couldn't work out where he kept it.

"They somehow got hold of the number and decided there was only one way of establishing if it was his.

"When it rang he was bouncing off the walls and confessed."

The incident at Kilmarnock jail last week comes amid revelations that Scotland's jails are flooded with illicit mobiles. Last year, 748 were found - up from 568 in 2006 and just 26 in 2002.

Mobiles allow inmates to conduct crime unchecked from behind bars.

In September, killer James Demarco, 18, ordered a machete attack from his cell at Edinburgh's Saughton prison - then listened as his henchman carried out the assault.

A report last year on London's Wandsworth Prison slammed the "apparently limitless" supply of mobile phones in the jail. It said prisoners used them to order drugs and run crime empires.

Kilmarnock private prison is run by multinational firm Serco.

They said: "Illicit mobile phones are a problem in all prisons.

"We conduct intelligence-led and regular random searches for them."

Kilmarnock is the first Scots jail to have a scanner which X-rays inmates for hidden objects.

The jail said: "We take every reasonable step to prevent mobiles entering the prison."

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