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Cannabis Campaigners' Guide News Database result:
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Cuppa the high point of jail visits Nick Hopkins Guardian Thursday 21 Oct 1999 The volunteers running the coffee shop in the visitors' room at Horfield prison in Bristol were slightly surprised by the roaring trade it did in hot drinks and slices of homemade cake. They imagined it was a pleasing reflection of their brewing and baking skills. The guards, however, were a little more suspicious. Careful examination of footage from overhead video cameras proved they had reason to be. For the first time in its 61-year history, the Women's Royal Voluntary Service had become involved, albeit unwittingly, in an ingenious drugs smuggling scam. Visitors to the top security prison were caught on film furtively dropping heroin, cocaine and cannabis into cups of tea, squashing cellophane covered "wraps" in moist bits of cake or hiding them in bags of crisps. Prisoners would swallow the packages in the course of a drink and a snack during visiting hours, recovering the drugs later. "We don't have screens between the prisoners and the visitors, so it makes transferring food quite easy," said Steve Leadbetter, the prison's principal officer in charge of security. "The visitors are very clever and you have to be alert. They do a bit of a Paul Daniel's routine. It only takes a sleight of hand and the drugs are dropped in the cup of tea." Mr Leadbetter said the WRVS volunteers had no idea what was going on. "They are sweet old ladies who give up their time to help others. It is not their fault. They provide a valuable service and we want them to continue." Mr Leadbetter and his team have caught several people and after every visiting session they review the video footage and call the police if they spot anything untoward. "We have had 20 visitors arrested. One was sent to prison for five years." Last year, Mr Leadbetter discovered drugs were being sent to inmates in the spines of glossy men's magazines. "When we discovered what was going on they started smuggling things in through the WRVS. Who knows what they will think of next? The prisoners in here have 24 hours a day to dream up ideas, but we are determined to stop the flow of drugs." A WRVS spokeswoman said: "We are sad that our volunteers' hard work has become tangled up in this situation. But we will continue to work in prisons, providing a legitimate service to the prison community."
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