Mobile phones smuggled into jail

BY Johnny Caldwell
BBC News

Inmates have restricted access to ordinary payphones

At least 44 mobile phones have been smuggled into Northern Ireland's three prisons in the last 12 months despite searches on entry.

Eight of the phones were confiscated from inmates serving sentences for drugs-related offences and one from a prisoner convicted of attempted murder.

Fears over jailed crime bosses using mobiles to direct operations led to new laws in the Republic this summer.

Northern Ireland is to get similar legislation, according to the NIO.

"Changes in legislation which will make it an offence to be in possession of a mobile phone in prison without prior authorisation are currently under consideration," said a spokeswoman.

BBC News can also reveal that 14 lone sim cards - the device used to store numbers, and so on, on a mobile phone - were also confiscated, half of them from prison visitors.

'Serious'

A Northern Ireland Prison Service spokesman said it treats "the issue of mobile phones smuggled into prisons as a serious matter".

"Where any inmate is found in possession of a mobile phone, or any component part of a phone, the individual would be charged with an offence against prison discipline under prison rules," he said.

The spokesman added that all prisons in Northern Ireland allow inmates access to ordinary payphones.

"Telephones are located throughout the residential areas and call credit is purchased weekly," he said.

"Inmates have regular access to telephones during their time out of cell."

The Irish Prison Service has recently examined the possibility of blocking mobile phone signals within the perimeter of a prison.