Calendar An icon of a desk calendar. Cancel An icon of a circle with a diagonal line across. Caret An icon of a block arrow pointing to the right. Email An icon of a paper envelope. Facebook An icon of the Facebook "f" mark. Google An icon of the Google "G" mark. Linked In An icon of the Linked In "in" mark. Logout An icon representing logout. Profile An icon that resembles human head and shoulders. Telephone An icon of a traditional telephone receiver. Tick An icon of a tick mark. Is Public An icon of a human eye and eyelashes. Is Not Public An icon of a human eye and eyelashes with a diagonal line through it. Pause Icon A two-lined pause icon for stopping interactions. Quote Mark A opening quote mark. Quote Mark A closing quote mark. Arrow An icon of an arrow. Folder An icon of a paper folder. Breaking An icon of an exclamation mark on a circular background. Camera An icon of a digital camera. Caret An icon of a caret arrow. Clock An icon of a clock face. Close An icon of the an X shape. Close Icon An icon used to represent where to interact to collapse or dismiss a component Comment An icon of a speech bubble. Comments An icon of a speech bubble, denoting user comments. Comments An icon of a speech bubble, denoting user comments. Ellipsis An icon of 3 horizontal dots. Envelope An icon of a paper envelope. Facebook An icon of a facebook f logo. Camera An icon of a digital camera. Home An icon of a house. Instagram An icon of the Instagram logo. LinkedIn An icon of the LinkedIn logo. Magnifying Glass An icon of a magnifying glass. Search Icon A magnifying glass icon that is used to represent the function of searching. Menu An icon of 3 horizontal lines. Hamburger Menu Icon An icon used to represent a collapsed menu. Next An icon of an arrow pointing to the right. Notice An explanation mark centred inside a circle. Previous An icon of an arrow pointing to the left. Rating An icon of a star. Tag An icon of a tag. Twitter An icon of the Twitter logo. Video Camera An icon of a video camera shape. Speech Bubble Icon A icon displaying a speech bubble WhatsApp An icon of the WhatsApp logo. Information An icon of an information logo. Plus A mathematical 'plus' symbol. Duration An icon indicating Time. Success Tick An icon of a green tick. Success Tick Timeout An icon of a greyed out success tick. Loading Spinner An icon of a loading spinner. Facebook Messenger An icon of the facebook messenger app logo. Facebook An icon of a facebook f logo. Facebook Messenger An icon of the Twitter app logo. LinkedIn An icon of the LinkedIn logo. WhatsApp Messenger An icon of the Whatsapp messenger app logo. Email An icon of an mail envelope. Copy link A decentered black square over a white square.

Contraband seized in Inverness Prison increases

HMP Inverness, also known as Porterfield Prison.
HMP Inverness, also known as Porterfield Prison.

Newspaper cuttings of children, hand made weapons, illegal drugs, mobile phones and home made booze are among the contraband items confiscated at Inverness Prison in the past five years.

A Freedom of Information request has shown that the amount of items recovered has increased in recent years, with the prison service saying it is getting better at detecting such items.

Back in 2014 there were there 77 items removed. The figure rose to 107 last year and this year there have already been 94 articles taken away.

The property has been confiscated from different areas of the prison, including the exercise yard, A hall, B hall, the library, reception, cells, in mail addressed to prisoners and on prisoners.

Drug paraphernalia such as needles, burnt foil and home made pipes have been found regularly and on occasions a CD player and Wii games console were seized.

Razor blades melted onto the ends of toothbrushes or razors to create weapons were confiscated.

A ripped towel to make a line to pass items between cells was also recovered.

Socks with string attached, tobacco, lighters and cigarette papers are some of the more innocuous sounding pieces of property confiscated.

A spokesman for the Scottish Prison Service said: “Prisoners have a list of property which they use, that will list everything that they are supposed to have in their cell. If something turns up during a routine cell search that is not on the list it gets confiscated. It stops people being bullied out of possessions.

“When a prisoner gets new property it is noted in their ‘articles in use’ list.

“We are quite vigilant about these things. We take the security and health and safety of people who live and work in our prisons very seriously. There are rules and if people have contraband material or material they are not supposed to have, we will take action.

“A lot of people in prison are in prison because they use drugs in the community and unfortunately they want to continue using them in prison. We take great precautions to try and prevent this.

“As we are more successful at finding these items, the number of finds will rise.”

There were no attempts to make legal challenges to get any of the items recorded back.