A long-serving prison officer who smuggled drugs and mobile phones into his jail will spend the next 40 months behind bars.
John Wallace, 36, was paid £1,800 to deliver the contraband over a five-month period to help pay off mounting family debts.
He would place the drugs and phones into socks, then into cardboard boxes labelled “Beat the Bosses Mobile Phone” and throw them over the prison wall.
When he was next on duty, he picked them up on the other side when he was next on duty.
Wallace, of Craigmore Crescent in Nethy Bridge, was sentenced to five years, with a discount for his early plea reducing it to three years and four months.
But his sentencing was delayed for several hours yesterday at Inverness Sheriff Court after a blunder led to a last-minute change in Sheriff.
Last month, Wallace admitted two charges that between October 27, 2015 and March 18, 2016, he introduced without reasonable excuse to HMP Porterfield Prison, mobile phones and cannabis resin, being prohibited articles and repeatedly threw parcels containing the phones and cannabis over the wall into prison grounds, collect them and take them into prison.
He also pleaded guilty to being concerned in the supply of cannabis resin in the prison and elsewhere whilst acting with others.
Sentencing yesterday, Sheriff Gordon Fleetwood said: “This was a gross breach of trust and both those in prison and your employers should have been able to rely on your integrity.
“But I will take into account the difficulties you will face in prison.”
Wallace’s solicitor advocate Urfan Dar said his client, already in custody, was spending 23 hours a day in effectively solitary confinement because of his previous job.
He told the Sheriff that there were five deliveries for which he was paid a total of £1,800.
Mr Dar added that some deliveries were not made because his client was “frightened.”
He added: “The method of delivery was pretty rudimentary – throwing a sock over the wall gives an indication of how reckless it was.
“His motivation was pressure of debt and this denotes an element of pre-planning.
“There were secrets in his relationship which is under considerable strain, and his wife was not aware of his activities.”
Police were tipped off about the smuggling and Wallace’s illicit activities were halted on March 18 when he was arrested.
The court was told that officers pounced when Wallace was in the Tesco Car Park at Inshes, Inverness.
He immediately told them: “there’s drugs in the car”…. “they’re in a red bag in the boot of the car”.
In a changed narrative from the one delivered in February, fiscal depute Roderick Urquhart told how a black box with 99.2g of cannabis resin and another empty black box were recovered from a red holdall.
He said: “The black boxes were empty “Beat the Boss” mobile phone boxes which are the same type of phones that have been recovered from within HMP Inverness that led to the investigation being started by the police. £100 in cash was recovered from him.”
He explained that the cannabis street value would be £290, but in prison it would be worth £1,450.
A go-between said Wallace never said no to taking in packages and was always willing.
When interviewed by the police, Wallace said: “I was desperate, I didn’t know what else to do and am guilty. I am now going to lose everything and I know that. I have had a lot of time to think this morning in the cell and I know its coming. No-one to blame but myself.”
A Scottish Prison Service spokesman said: “We take very seriously the security of our prisons and work closely with our partner agencies to prevent smuggling of illegal contraband.
“Those who continue to try and ply this trade can expect the full force of the law.”
Detective Inspector Peter Mackenzie said: “Our message to individuals involved in the supply of controlled drugs into Her Majesty’s Prison is that we will continue to pro-actively target those involved whilst working together with our partner agencies to identify emerging trends and methods utilised by the individuals involved.”
