Lawyer who brought drugs into jail 'made £50,000'

A CORRUPT lawyer who smuggled drugs into prison has made more than £50,000 from crime, it was alleged yesterday.

Angela Baillie, 32, is awaiting sentence for taking heroin and diazepam tablets worth 1,558 to a client in Glasgow's Barlinnie jail.

However, in a parallel case under the Proceeds of Crime Act, prosecutors are seeking a confiscation order against her to the sum of 52,556. The figure has been calculated by trawling her financial affairs over recent years and working out her expenditure beyond her known income. Baillie, of Newton Mearns, near Glasgow, is contesting the application.

Her prosecution attracted widespread publicity last month when a judge initially made an order which temporarily prevented her from being named. The following day, after representations from the media, Lord Kinclaven lifted the ban under the Contempt of Court Act.

Baillie, who worked for a criminal law firm in Glasgow, had been caught after an insider claimed to the authorities that drugs were being supplied to an inmate by his legal representative during confidential prison visits.

The police were alerted and special screenings were carried out to ensure that none of the prisoners due to meet their lawyers had anything on them before a one-to-one meeting in an individual cubicle.

Baillie's client was strip-searched after his consultation with her and he was found to have a cigarette packet, which had been opened and resealed with sticky tape. It contained 158 diazepam tablets and 14.85g of heroin. DNA on the sticky tape matched samples from Baillie.

The advocate-depute, Peter Ferguson, QC, told the High Court in Paisley that, due to the quantities involved, it was "plain beyond doubt" that the drugs were "for supply to the prison system generally".

Baillie could face a jail term when she appears for sentencing later this month.

Yesterday, a preliminary hearing in the confiscation proceedings was held at the High Court in Edinburgh.

The Crown claimed that Baillie's expenditure over the last six years, funded other than from known sources - she was earning around 30,000 a year - amounted to 52,556 and "represents the benefit from general criminal conduct".

It added that she had a realisable asset, her home, which was worth an estimated 165,000, and she did not have a mortgage on the property.

John Scullion, counsel for Baillie, said both sides were requesting a continuation in the case "to enable these inquiries to be completed".

The judge, Lord Emslie, agreed to schedule another hearing for next month.