Dudley prisoner smuggled heroin, phones and sim cards into jail

Christopher Gittings, aged 37, from Himley Road, Dudley, was acting as a courier on January 25 last year when he was given a package by a visitor, Penny West, at Stoke Heath Prison.

The package contained two mobile phones, 10 sim cards, 11.98 grams of heroin and 17 tablets of the class C drug Buprenorphine.

Patrick Sullivan, prosecuting, said Gittings had appeared in Telford Magistrates Court on May 30 and was committed to Shrewsbury Crown Court for sentencing.

Gittings admitted conspiring to take two mobile phones into prison, and also possession of class A and C drugs with intent to supply.

After West had gone to visit Gittings, officers saw a package being passed, and Gittings tried to put it down his trousers, they said.

The heroin had a street value of £1,000, however Mr Sullivan said value was higher in prison. Charles Crinion, defending, said his client was a courier for people higher up the chain in prison, and said Gittings had pleaded guilty at the first opportunity.

He said he had bowed to pressure of people in prison, and he was not the distributor of the drugs himself.

He did not know West and the meeting had been set up by others.

Mr Crinion added West had already been sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison for her part in the offences.

He added: “He feels like his life is slipping away from him, he has spent most of his adult life in prison and does not want that anymore.”

Judge Jim Tindal said smuggling drugs into prison disrupts people’s rehabilitation and is also used by people higher up the chain to control and run a ‘mini-gangland empire’.

Gittings is currently serving a prison sentence, and Judge Tindal sentenced him to three years in prison for the possession with intent to supply heroin.

He was also sentenced to 12 months in prison to run consecutively for the class C drug offence and for the mobile phone offence.