Timepiece found inside prisoner

A watch was removed from one prisoner

Razor blades and a wristwatch are among the items removed from inside prisoners in Northern Ireland.

Surgeons dealing with foreign bodies in inmates are based at Belfast's City Hospital, the only facility in NI which performs acute surgery on prisoners.

Their experiences have been published in the latest edition of the Ulster Medical Journal to help produce guidelines for other medics.

From 1998 to 2007 there were 11 such cases at the hospital.

In total six had swallowed razor blades, three batteries, one a 20 pence coin and another a wristwatch.

Seven patients were managed conservatively but surgery was deemed necessary in four cases.

All the patients - eight male and three female - survived and the watch was recovered, still ticking, in an endoscopy.

However, the research showed that almost half the patients went on to swallow more foreign objects.

The paper notes that such ingestions are a common problem among inmates, with a variety of reasons for the actions.

These can include psychiatric conditions, attempts to escape jail during transfer to medical facilities, trying to smuggle drugs and, of course, genuine accidental swallowing of such objects.