West Mercia Police see big rise in reports over drones
More than 400 incidents involving drones were reported to West Mercia Police, including 64 reports about the remote-controlled machines being flown over prisons.
Data obtained from the force shows there were 412 incidents involving drones reported to police since 2014.
This has risen dramatically from just eight in 2014 to 193 last year.
As well as the cases of drones being flown over prisons, there was also three reports of drones landing inside a prison on three separate days in March last year.
There were two further reports of drones crashing on the prison sports field, and one of a drone being found in a jail car park.
Last month, Craig Hickinbottom was jailed for seven years and two months for running a drone-based mail-order operation from a prison cell at HMP Featherstone, just over the county boundary in Staffordshire.
It is thought some of the offences related to Stoke Heath prison, near Market Drayton.
Drones, equipped with fishing lines and hooks, were flown to the windows of cells. CCTV images showed other prisoners, including 37-year-old Sanjay Patel from Telford, walking to the cells concerned, and collecting packages – believed to be contraband they had ordered.
Drone pilot Mervyn Foster received a sentence of six years and eight months for his part in the conspiracy, which involved 49 provable drone flights and four so-called “throw-overs” of contraband.
Birmingham Crown Court was told the offences were committed between July 2015 and May last year at jails across the country. Patel was jailed for four months for possessing a mobile phone in prison.
Hickinbottom, 35, who was a prisoner at Featherstone and later HMP Hewell in Worcestershire, organised deliveries to both jails during the conspiracy. He admitted four counts of conspiring to bring contraband into prison, and conspiracy to supply psychoactive substances.
In June the Government announced the setting up of a specialist unit to tackle the problem of drones dropping contraband in jail grounds.
Stoke Heath prison was forced to step up security in 2016 after seeing incidents of drones being used to fly in contraband such as drugs, weapons and mobile phones.
The figures were obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by the Liberal Democrats.
Councillor Andy Boddington, from Ludlow, said the figures showed that more money needed to be spent in tackling the problem.
"Being a criminal has become ever more inventive," he said.
"Our concern is that the police force, and the prison services might not have the resources to keep up with the modern criminal."
