Solicitors warned over 'illegal' calls to prisons

SOLICITORS have been alerted to the risk of "inadvertently" committing a criminal offence by calling clients in prison who are using illegal mobile phones.

The Law Society has issued a note to its members warning they could be taking part in criminal activity by ringing the prohibited phones.

According to the guidance, some lawyers may call inmates "without realising the call is being made to an illicitly possessed telephone".

The note reads: "There is a danger that by making a call to a prisoner's unlawfully possessed mobile telephone you may be, either deliberately or inadvertently, committing a criminal offence."

The Society said the illicit possession and use of mobile telephones in prisons is becoming an increasing issue and warned solicitors not to call inmates on mobile phone numbers and to terminate any incoming calls from prisoners using mobiles.

It said: "You should inform the caller that they are committing an offence and that you and your staff will not accept calls in such circumstances."

Illegal mobile phones in prisons have been used to enable drug deals and even organise a murder. A gang member in Liverpool was killed in a hit organised by an inmate using a illicit mobile phone.

Liam Smith was shot dead outside Merseyside's Altcourse Prison on 23 August, 2006. He was spotted visiting a friend in the prison by rival gang member, inmate Ryan Lloyd, who used a hidden mobile phone to arrange the hit.

Mark Leech, editor of Converse, the national prisoner's newspaper, said mobiles in prisons are worth 2,500 to 5,000 each month to convicts, who charge other inmates to use them.

He said that prison officers are paid between 1,000 and 1,500 for smuggling a mobile into prison. They could be paid up to 300 just for giving an inmate a sim card.

In May, a prison officer at Pentonville Prison was jailed for smuggling drugs and mobile phones to inmates.

Leech added that prisoners go to extreme lengths to obtain phones in jail.

He said in the last week one phone was found stitched inside a dead pigeon that had been thrown over a wall into HMP Forest Bank, in Greater Manchester. A prisoner picked it up and threw it in a bin for later rescue, but an alert prison officer spotted the stitching on the bird.