Latest news with #TomWheatley
The Independent
16-07-2025
- The Independent
Drone caught airdropping contraband into HMP Wandsworth Prison
This is the moment a drone drops a package into HMP Wandsworth Prison. Footage shared by the BBC Newsnight on Monday (14 July) shows the unmanned aerial vehicle hovering above the south London jail before appearing to drop an item onto prison grounds in the early hours of 21 June. Commenting on the clip, President of the Prison Governors Association, Tom Wheatley said that drone drops are a 'significant' problem that are 'happening every day'. The government has not commented on the specific footage from the category B men's prison - which is home to sex offenders and terrorists - but said it is taking action against drone dropping, with £10m being spent on anti-drone measures.
Daily Mail
15-07-2025
- Daily Mail
Drone delivery highlights 'gaping hole' in prison security
Astonishing footage has been released of the moment a drone drops a large suspected drugs package into the grounds of HMP Wandsworth. The video, captured at around 3.30am on June 21, shows the aircraft hovering above the category B men's prison, which houses sex offenders and terrorists, before seemingly dropping the item into the courtyard. It comes just after various scandals in the south London prison including an officer last year making X-rated content with an inmate. Tom Wheatley, President of the Prison Governors Association told BBC Newsnight that drone use was a 'significant and growing problem in prisons' that is happening 'every day'. He said: This probably started around 2012, 2013. We started to see contraband entry in prisons by drones around that time and now this is happening every day … it's happening on multiple occasions in some prisons during a 24-hour period and in multiple prisons around the country on the same evening. 'It is shocking because we have been able to rely on the measures that we normally take to prevent things coming into prison. So: searching of people; restrictions about access to prisons. We've been able to deal with the way that criminals try to get drugs into prison. 'We've basically now got a gaping hole in our ability to prevent that, and drugs coming into prison don't just cause harm to prisoners who take them, there's a whole illicit economy - and violence and enforcement - that goes with that, that make prisons less safe and us less likely to be able to rehabilitate people in them. Mr Wheatley also warned of the prospect that guns could be dropped in, saying there is 'no practical reason' why the drones, which can carry items up to 10 kilos, couldn't deliver the weapons to prisons. He added: We have yet to encounter [guns], we think. We've certainly not discovered [them] in prisons in recent years - guns have made their way into prisons before. The Whitemoor escape involved prisoners having access and shooting at prison officers. 'So, there is no practical reason why guns couldn't come into prison via this means. I think the real issue is that it's not in anyone's interest at the moment because this is a lucrative trade run by serious organised criminals.' Asked why the drones can't be jammed, the prisons chief said the technology to implement such a process 'just simply hasn't been there' due to the speed that technology is evolving. Mr Wheatley also claimed there are potential problems with just shooting the drones down in residential areas. He said: 'I think there are issues about where prisons are, so if you consider Manchester prison which is in an urban area with people moving around outside it, these drones are actually quite big. 'They're not the toy shop things that we see and, if we were to shoot one down, the chance it would fall and injure someone or damage somebody else's property is significant, but that balance has got to be changing over time.' He also sparked fears over the drones being eventually used to break prisoners out of jail if they evolve in their ability to lift heavier items.
Daily Mail
15-07-2025
- Daily Mail
Astonishing moment drone drops suspected drugs package into crisis-hit HMP Wandsworth as prison officer boss warns guns could be smuggled in
Astonishing footage has been released of the moment a drone drops a large suspected drugs package into the grounds of HMP Wandsworth. The video, captured at around 3.30am on June 21, shows the aircraft hovering above the category B men's prison, which houses sex offenders and terrorists, before seemingly dropping the item into the courtyard. It comes just after various scandals in the south London prison including an officer last year making X-rated content with an inmate. Tom Wheatley, President of the Prison Governors Association told BBC Newsnight that drone use was a 'significant and growing problem in prisons' that is happening 'every day'. He said: This probably started around 2012, 2013. We started to see contraband entry in prisons by drones around that time and now this is happening every day … it's happening on multiple occasions in some prisons during a 24-hour period and in multiple prisons around the country on the same evening. 'It is shocking because we have been able to rely on the measures that we normally take to prevent things coming into prison. So: searching of people; restrictions about access to prisons. We've been able to deal with the way that criminals try to get drugs into prison. 'We've basically now got a gaping hole in our ability to prevent that, and drugs coming into prison don't just cause harm to prisoners who take them, there's a whole illicit economy - and violence and enforcement - that goes with that, that make prisons less safe and us less likely to be able to rehabilitate people in them. Mr Wheatley also warned of the prospect that guns could be dropped in, saying there is 'no practical reason' why the drones, which can carry items up to 10 kilos, couldn't deliver the weapons to prisons. He added: We have yet to encounter [guns], we think. We've certainly not discovered [them] in prisons in recent years - guns have made their way into prisons before. The Whitemoor escape involved prisoners having access and shooting at prison officers. 'So, there is no practical reason why guns couldn't come into prison via this means. I think the real issue is that it's not in anyone's interest at the moment because this is a lucrative trade run by serious organised criminals.' Asked why the drones can't be jammed, the prisons chief said the technology to implement such a process 'just simply hasn't been there' due to the speed that technology is evolving. Mr Wheatley also claimed there are potential problems with just shooting the drones down in residential areas. He said: 'I think there are issues about where prisons are, so if you consider Manchester prison which is in an urban area with people moving around outside it, these drones are actually quite big. 'They're not the toy shop things that we see and, if we were to shoot one down, the chance it would fall and injure someone or damage somebody else's property is significant, but that balance has got to be changing over time.' He also sparked fears over the drones being eventually used to break prisoners out of jail if they evolve in their ability to lift heavier items. Mr Wheatley added: 'We have seen, in an English prison, a helicopter assisted escape, that's something that we have to guard against - but the availability of cheaper means to lift someone out of a prison pose a significant risk.' A Ministry of Justice spokesperson told MailOnline that they had allocated £10million on anti-drone measures this financial year. They said: 'This Government is investing £40million in new security measures this year to clamp down on the contraband that fuels violence behind bars.
Telegraph
07-06-2025
- Politics
- Telegraph
Prison governor has skull smashed in by inmate
A prison governor has suffered a fractured skull after an inmate attacked them in the latest assault in Britain's overcrowded jails. The governor is understood to have been attending a celebratory event held on one of the wings at HMP Ranby in Retford, Nottinghamshire, when he was attacked on May 16. It is rare for a governor to suffer such an assault and he is said to have been so seriously injured that he is still recovering in hospital nearly three weeks after the attack. It has sparked calls by Tom Wheatley, the head of the Prison Governors' Association, for the Government to consider US 'supermax-style' regimes within prisons for the most violent and dangerous offenders. Supermax units in the US see inmates confined for most of the day in single cells with facilities made of poured, reinforced concrete to deter self-harm. They have few privileges and are kept under 24-hour supervision, with high staff–inmate ratios. Violent assaults His call follows a series of violent assaults over the past month which have seen prison officers stabbed and seriously injured. Hashem Abedi, a plotter of the Manchester Arena bombing, attacked and injured three officers in a separation unit in the high security Frankland jail in County Durham. Abedi, who is serving life, threw hot cooking oil over them and stabbed them with two makeshift knives he had fashioned from baking trays in the kitchen. Police are also investigating an attack by Axel Rudakubana, the Southport killer, a who is alleged to have thrown scalding hot water from his kettle over a prison officer at HMP Belmarsh high-security jail in south London. A prison officer was seriously injured this month when he was stabbed in an unprovoked attack by an inmate with a knife believed to have been flown into HMP Long Lartin high-security jail in Worcestershire by a drone. Shabana Mahmood, the Justice Secretary, has ordered a review of separation centres used for dangerous Islamist terrorists, which could see them expanded. This week she also announced front-line prison officers overseeing separation centres and other segregation units in high-security jails will be given stab vests. A trial is also planned for staff to carry Tasers. However, Mr Wheatley said the attack on the governor at HMP Ranby, a category C training prison, showed that serious violence was not restricted to only high-security prisons. 'These attacks are not about the method of the assault, it is about the intent. What we need to change is something about the environment that deals with the intent of people to cause our staff harm,' he told The Telegraph. 'What we need to carefully consider are different regimes for prisoners who exhibit that level of violence. Every prison currently has a segregation unit and these violent prisoners can expect to be segregated. 'They may get an additional sentence [as a result of the assault] but if you are serving a life sentence like Abedi, that is not going to make a difference. 'We need to consider things like administrative segregation regimes, like in America, which are about keeping people without very many possessions away from everybody else because they have been violent. There should be proper consideration of that. I am not supporting it but we need to think about it.' Mr Wheatley acknowledged there would be resource implications. It would require extra exercise yard space in prisons as each isolated prisoner would have to get their supervised daily exercise hour on their own – or a change to the requirement for every inmate to have at least an hour every day of fresh air. Jonathan Hall KC, the independent reviewer of terror legislation, has been appointed by Ms Mahmood to review separation units. He has said he will consider the 'human consequences' of segregating prisoners in such a way that it reduces the risk of violence to 'near zero', including super-max regimes. Some 10,605 assaults on staff in male and female jails were recorded in 2024, up from 9,204 in 2023 and nearly three times the 3,640 in 2014.
Yahoo
06-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Rioters and people smugglers to be moved to open prisons early
Serious offenders, including rioters and people smugglers, will be transferred early to open prisons to tackle the jail overcrowding crisis, governors have warned. The Prison Governors' Association (PGA) said it was 'concerned' by a rule change that will allow potentially dangerous criminals to be moved to open prisons up to three years before they are due to be released. It could mean criminals serving sentences of more than seven years will be transferred within two weeks of being jailed, the PGA said. Among the eligible prisoners are human traffickers bringing in migrants for forced labour, offenders convicted of rioting or violent disorder, criminals caught with guns, class A drug dealers, motorists who have caused serious injury by dangerous driving and fraudsters. The rule, known as TPRS36, which takes effect on Friday, introduces a 'presumption' that offenders who meet certain risk and offence criteria should be transferred to open prisons three years before their automatic scheduled release date. Governors will make the final decision on transfers, but the PGA said they would only have limited discretion, in exceptional circumstances, to reject moves to open prisons While closed category A to C prisons remain overcrowded, there is space within category D open prisons. However, open prisons have minimal security with no physical barriers such as high walls, fences and secure gates and less supervision by officers to stop offenders from simply walking out. Accommodation is more akin to student digs, with eligible inmates allowed to spend most of their day away from the prison on licence to work, attend education or participate in other resettlement programmes. Tom Wheatley, PGA president, said: 'Open prisons are not a suitable place to house men that have been very recently sentenced for serious offences without any risk assessment. 'To ask the governor to decide that such risk is 'wholly unacceptable', given eligibility after just 14 days, is too short a time to make any such assessment and therefore to protect the public. It is also not what victims of crime expect, nor what the courts intend. 'This is simply a scheme to manage the lack of suitable prison capacity and, having already released many low-risk offenders, it is becoming difficult to use the capacity in open prisons. If TPRS36 rules were not used, many of these men would remain in the closed prison estate safely behind walls and fences.' Eligible prisoners include those serving standard determinate sentences, where they are eligible for release 40 per cent of the way through their terms, no history of escape attempts, have served at least 14 days of their time and have a 'low or medium' risk of causing serious harm on release. Terrorists, sex offenders, violent offenders serving sentences of more than four years and stalkers are excluded. A Ministry of Justice spokesman said: 'We are building new prisons and are on track for 14,000 places by 2031 – the largest expansion since the Victorians. 'Our sentencing reforms will also force prisoners to earn their way to release or face longer in jail for bad behaviour, while ensuring the most dangerous offenders can be kept off the streets. 'Only certain thoroughly risk-assessed offenders are eligible for moves to open prison and anyone found breaching the rules can be immediately returned to a closed prison.' The move follows the introduction of an early release scheme where offenders are freed 40 per cent of the way through their sentence and changes so that violent criminals, burglars and robbers recalled to jail will serve just a month in prison. The early release schemes are designed to tide the MoJ through until the introduction of its sentencing reforms which will see prisoners who behave well released as little as a third of the way through their sentences and killers, rapists and other violent offenders eligible for release at the halfway point rather than two thirds. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
