HMP Hewell smugglers hid drugs and mobile phones in Weetabix boxes

A prison officer who was the ringleader of a smuggling gang supplying inmates with drugs and mobile phones hidden inside boxes of cereal has been jailed.

Martin Mills, 34, was caught red-handed trying to smuggle prohibited items into HMP Hewell concealed in packs of Weetabix and Ready Brek. A court heard he was stopped as he arrived for work at the category B jail near Redditch, after prison bosses became suspicious in April 2018.

Detectives were able to link several other people to the smuggling ring, including prisoners housed on the block Mills worked on. Family members of the lags would pay money into Mills’ bank account and he would then take the prohibited items to work for the prisoners to sell on inside.

Photos show how drugs, phones, SIM cards, tobacco, Rizlas, wads of cash and even a knife were recovered as part of the operation. Mills, of Bromsgrove, pleaded guilty to smuggling list A items (drugs) and list B items (mobile phones and associated equipment).

He was jailed for four years at Worcester Crown Court on Monday (November 11). Mills was sentenced alongside eight other people for conspiracy to bring, throw and convey prohibited items in to the prison.

• Iain Maclachlan-Sim, 34, of Leamington Spa, and Hamza Mohumed, 32, of Coventry, were both jailed for four years.
• Tony Graham Barrett, 28, of Nuneaton,,was caged for three years and two months while David Ward, 53, of Coventry, was sentenced to 21 months.
• Jy Kennedy, 30, of Leamington Spa, received a seven month suspended sentence and given a £250 fine.
• Isiah Gill, 34, of Birmingham, was sentenced to 10 months, suspended for 12 months and ordered to undertake 80 hours of unpaid work.
• Leanne Miles, 32, of Coventry, was sentenced to 12 months, suspended for a year.
• Ann Marie Sim, 52, of Leamington Spa, received a six month sentence, suspended for 12 months.

Detective Constable Claire Masters, of West Mercia Police, said: “This has been a complicated and long-running investigation and I’m pleased that all those involved have now been brought to justice.

“Prisons should be a place of safety and the actions of Mills and his accomplices threatened that. Drugs have no place in prison and hinder the rehabilitation of those who are there, often when they are at their most vulnerable. I hope these sentences show that we take all reports of crime seriously, regardless of who commits them and where they took place.”