The Chief Inspector of Prisons says drones are being used to deliver drugs, mobile phones and weapons to "some of the riskiest men in the country", including terrorists and leaders of organised crime gangs. Charlie Taylor adds that inspections at HMP Manchester and HMP Long Lartin found that "security systems weren't working properly" and packages were being sent to individual cells through broken windows or disguised as rubbish bags. Report by Brooksl. Like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/itn and follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/itn
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00:00Well these are two inspection reports that we put out today from jails that we
00:04were in during the autumn and what is particularly concerning is Long Lart in
00:10Worcestershire and Manchester Prison are both holding some of
00:15the riskiest men in the country and what we found in this report was that drones
00:19were getting into the jails, were delivering packages to individual cells
00:25and some of these were containing drugs, some were containing mobile phones but
00:30most concerning of all is that weapons are getting into prisons which are
00:34holding terrorist offenders and bosses of organized crime gangs. Manchester
00:39Prison was in a real state for many other reasons, so prisoners were locked
00:42up in their cells too long, there were vermin around the prison, we saw rats
00:47everywhere we went and the place was pretty much in chaos. Long Lart wasn't
00:52quite at that stage but it was this influx of drones that we were seeing
00:56into both jails in different ways because prisoners at Manchester were
01:01getting drugs through windows whilst at Long Lart we were seeing packages
01:05delivered by drones which were disguised as things like rubbish bags. So these are
01:10sophisticated organized criminals who are managing to get some large quantities
01:14of contraband into prisons that are holding some of the riskiest men in the
01:18country and what we found is things like security systems weren't working
01:21properly, so CCTV was broken, we found that netting which is useful to keep
01:26drones out, again that wasn't working. At Manchester the windows were often broken
01:31and the replacement windows were being burnt out by prisoners who'd realized
01:35that actually they could burn a hole through the window by ripping the
01:39element out from their kettle. So in both jails in different ways we were seeing
01:44large quantities of contraband coming in with the potential for weapons and an
01:49attempt at things like escape or to cause serious disruption in these
01:53prisons and that isn't fair on the other prisoners but critically it also isn't
01:57fair on the people who work in these jails.