LONDON: Organised crime gangs in the UK are using drones to deliver drugs and some weapons to inmates inside jails, threatening national security, the prison watchdog warned on Tuesday.
The gangs “are able to deliver contraband to jails holding extremely dangerous prisoners”, chief inspector of prisons Charlie Taylor said in reports published on Tuesday after inspections of Manchester prison in northwest England and Long Lartin prison in western England.
“The safety of staff, prisoners and ultimately that of the public is seriously compromised by the failure to tackle what has become a threat to national security,” added Taylor.
There were “catastrophic levels” of drugs present at the prison in Manchester, he warned.
He also said that the UK government and police had “given up” controlling airspace over the two jails.
“It is highly alarming that the police and prison service have in effect ceded the airspace above two high-security prisons to organised crime gangs,” said Taylor.
The Manchester prison had a “serious problem with drugs, weapons, mobile telephones, and even takeaway meals being delivered by drones to cell windows”, the report said.
It added that there had been some 220 drone sightings at the jail in the past year, “by far the highest across all prisons in England and Wales”.
LISBON: Taking the name Aga Khan V, Prince Rahim Al-Hussaini on Tuesday officially became the hereditary Imam of the...
TOKYO: A drunken night out led to a Japanese finance ministry official losing documents containing personal...
LUANDA: A cholera outbreak in Angola has killed at least 108 people since the start of the year, the health ministry...
SAN FRANCISCO: Google on Tuesday changed the name of the Gulf of Mexico to “Gulf of America” for those using its...
BERLIN: An intercity train collided with a lorry at a crossing in Germany on Tuesday, leaving one person dead and...
ROME: Tuscany on Tuesday became the first of Italy´s 20 regions to set out rules allowing assisted suicide, which the...
UNITED NATIONS: Iran alerted the United Nations on Tuesday to what it described as “reckless and inflammatory...
MAYVILLE, New York: The novelist Salman Rushdie showed a jury his blinded right eye on Tuesday as he testified against...