Attempt to smuggle drugs into prison using bottle, fish hooks and blankets

THREE people tried to smuggle drugs and a mobile phone into Swansea prison using a Kinder Egg, blankets and fish hooks.

Dean Jones was a serving prisoner at HMP Swansea when he emotionally blackmailed his then girlfriend, Helen Kneath, and his father, David John Jones, to smuggle the goods over the prison wall.

Swansea Crown Court heard a bottle, containing wet sand and a weight, was found inside the prison walls by an officer.

When he looked inside, he found a vial of steroids, a needle and a mobile phone, as well as some anti-sickness medication, and prescription painkillers stored inside a Kinder Egg.

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Plot

On the outside of the bottle were fishing hooks, taped on with masking tape.

Prosecutor Dean Pullen said the idea behind the plot was that the prisoner would then tie blankets together, throw them out of his window, hoping to catch the parcel, and pull it back into their cell.

On this occasion the package landed 15 feet short of the cell block, and Dean Jones, 34, of no fixed address, could not reach it.

Mr Pullen said Kneath's role was to collect the packaging and needle, but David Jones had responsibility for finding the drugs and throwing them over the prison wall.

The court heard there was CCTV showing a man outside the prison wearing a black hooded top and balaclava the night before the bottle was found on August 7.

Evidence was found on the mobile phone that Dean Jones was the intended recipient.

Both Kneath, 32, of Grenfell Park Road, St Thomas, and David Jones, 61, of Aneurin Way, Sketty, said they had felt pressured by Dean Jones to commit the offence.

Andrew Evans, for Dean Jones, said: "He feels that he has emotionally blackmailed both his father and his then-girlfriend into acting in the way they did and it's his biggest regret, not for him, but for them."

He said his client had asked for the unusual choice of drugs on medical, not recreational, grounds and the phone was intended to contact his family.

Huw Rees, for David Jones, said: "This is wholly based on misplaced loyalty of father to son."

But he said his client had been made subject to external pressures to deliver the goods.

Lee Davies, for Kneath, said that his client was the sole carer of her 12-year-old daughter and said she had no previous offences.

"Her role is more limited than that of the other two defendants," he added.

Judge Paul Thomas said there was a "major problem" with goods being taken into prison which affected security.

Kneath and David Jones admitted bringing, throwing or conveying a prohibited article into or out of prison while Dean Jones admitted causing other people to throw the items.

Dean Jones was jailed for 16 months, his father, was jailed for 6 months and Kneath was made subject to an 8 month sentence, suspended for 12 months.

She was also made subject to a 3 month curfew and told to complete 100 hours of unpaid work.