Report: £80,000 X-ray scanners fail to keep drugs out of prisons due to staff shortages

The critical review comes ahead of Chief Inspector of Prisons Charlie Taylor's annual report, published on Tuesday, in which he is expected to warn that drug use in some prisons is out of control, with up to half of inmates testing positive in random tests.

He will highlight the threat posed by sophisticated criminal gangs using drones and increasingly sophisticated methods to drop heavy loads of cannabis on prisons because they can make “enormous” profits from selling the drug in prisons.

In one prison, inmates ripped the heating element out of a boiler and burned a hole in the plexiglass windows of their cells so that drones could fly in and deliver drugs and cell phones used to coordinate smuggling.

At another prison, HMP Oakwood in Wolverhampton, gangs hid drug shipments in the grass and then used drones to drop them onto the grass of the prison's sports fields so they could be undetected by officers and taken by prisoners.

Mr Taylor told The Telegraph: “We see that the prison service is struggling with a highly sophisticated organised crime sector that is making huge profits here.”

“Even though they lose a lot of deliveries because they are found or picked up, there is still a lot of money to be made. Some prisons are particularly frequently attacked by large and powerful drones that can carry a large payload.”

“Another symptom of the crisis in our prisons”

He said this was also increasing the type of drugs sold in prisons. In the past, Spice, a synthetic psychoactive drug, dominated the market because it was an invisible liquid that could be smuggled into prisons, for example, soaked in paper.

“But now that drones can be deployed with larger payloads, we are seeing a lot more cannabis. When we walk around prisons now, we smell the odor much more strongly than we used to,” Taylor said.

A Ministry of Justice spokesman said: “The availability of drugs, weapons and mobile phones behind bars is another symptom of the crisis in our prisons.

“As the report notes, with proper and consistent use of equipment such as full-body X-ray scanners, it is possible to stop the illegal trade in items that fuel violence behind bars. However, staff shortages in recent years have meant that the equipment has not been used effectively.

“This administration will get the crisis under control and ensure our staff have the resources they need to run safe prisons that produce better citizens, not more dangerous criminals.”