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Nun the wiser: mobile phone found in jail birthday cake
Tuesday, 22 July 2008
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The chaplain of Mountjoy Jail in Dublin was used unwittingly yesterday in an attempt to smuggle a mobile phone into the jail -- in a birthday cake.
Gardai have interviewed the chaplain, Sister Eithne, but are satisfied that she is innocent and had no idea that a phone was concealed in the cake.
The request for a birthday cake was made to the jail authorities by a prisoner serving a two-year sentence for an arson attack. It was granted, and a senior Mountjoy official asked Sr Eithne to collect the cake and bring it into the prison.
When the chaplain arrived back at the prison yesterday at lunchtime she handed over the cake to be scanned through the x-ray machine that is being used to combat the smuggling of contraband goods into the jail.
The machine immediately detected an object hidden in the cake and prison officers removed a mobile phone.
Prison authorities contacted the gardai, who began an investigation. Initial statements are being taken from the chaplain, the senior prison official and staff at the entrance to the complex. Detectives will also interview the prisoner, and further inquiries are being focused on the source of the cake.
A full report on the incident was being awaited last night by the director general of the Irish Prison Service, Brian Purcell.
A spokesman for the Prison Service said last night that the incident underlined the effectiveness of the recently installed security equipment.
Since the x-ray machines were introduced, the smuggling of drugs and mobile phones into Mountjoy through visitors has ceased and the price of purchasing a phone in the jail has jumped dramatically.
Officials said this incident showed prisoners were becoming desperate to find other ways to bring in the contraband.
"This is a classic case," one official said last night. "It's like a plot out of an old English film, made in Pinewood studios. But in this case, heavenly intervention was on our side."
It is a criminal offence to smuggle a mobile phone into a jail, carrying a maximum sentence of five years in prison.
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stuff like that stop in the usa decades ago.most contraband smuggle into jail are drugs.females are the most likely culprits.so some prison has drug dogs and female correction officers to do evasive body searches on the female drug smugglers.when they are caught and word is spread by the media the penalty like that dissayed others.it carries a 10 year prison sentence,which means they can only stay in a county jail two years and the rest in a state prison.which at times you be confuse who is the inmate and who is the correction officer.in the men state prison, it is a serious statement, where do you want your body sent too if you die during incarciation
Posted by carolyn purcell | 02.04.09, 03:36 GMT