The truth about drones and prisons

The prison service knew how to stop drones - but seems to have forgotten

Photo by Lukáš Vaňátko on Unsplash

The prison service once knew how to stop drones carrying drugs and weapons into our prisons. How, and why did it forget?

Today I’m publishing a detailed investigation I’ve been working on for many months, which reveals previously unreported details about the scale and growth of drone incidents in prisons across the country, the failure of the prison service, police and aviation authorities to prevent this. Even more importantly, this investigation reveals that last decade the prison service developed a highly effective model for identifying and arresting those behind the drone networks. Unfortunately this model, named Operation Trenton, was closed in 2018 and ever since then the drone problem has escalated while the state seems powerless.

In the normal course of things I would publish an investigation like this in a magazine or newspaper. But for whatever reason there doesn’t seem to be the appetite to publish this investigation at the scale it warrants.

So I’m publishing it for paid subscribers, although I’ve made a substantial portion available without paying. If you find it interesting, and would like to read the full piece, and see some of the underlying data including a log of drone incidents at prisons across the country, then please do consider subscribing. I’ll also be publishing an audio recording of me reading the article over the Christmas period - this will just be for paid subscribers.

If readers like this approach then I’ll publish other work on corruption and misconduct via this Substack.

And now, on to the story:

British prisons are supposed to be secure. The typical jail in this country has layers of physical security. A high outer wall topped with razor wire. Gates. Fences. Then each ‘wing’ or ‘house block’ is itself a miniature prison, with its own layers of iron gates and solid walls. Windows are barred, in cells, workshops, education and even some staff offices. Mostly, this security works. Escapes from prison are rare. But there’s a gaping weakness in the air above our jails, through which a torrent of drugs, phones, weapons and even stranger contraband flows, carried by drones.

Modern, commercially-available drones are sophisticated, heavy-duty machines. Controlled by radio or internet connection, drones capable of carrying several kilos can be purchased for as little as £1,000 on Amazon. They’re easy to control, and most can even record routes, allowing for autonomous flying. Drones like that are now the preferred route for contraband into the prison system.

In 2020 there were only 134 drone sightings over, or in prisons. Last year that number had risen to 1,712. Day-after-day they make their deliveries, often directly to the window of a prisoner’s cell. Once such a delivery has been made and recorded the drone operator just has to press a button and autonomous flying will do the rest.

I reviewed a log of 90 drone incidents from this summer. I was struck by the volume, the ineffectiveness of security and the sheer audacity of the operators. The majority of the incidents seem to involve staff sighting a drone over the prison but not seeing or locating any package it may have delivered. On one occasion, at HMP Channings Wood on the 21^st of August, six drones were spotted flying within prison grounds.

I had thought of drone deliveries as something which happen after dark, when fewer staff are on-shift and patrols are limited. While most deliveries are at night, often drones have made deliveries in the middle of the day. At Brixton jail on the 6^th of August a drone delivered a package to a prisoner’s cell window at 1:10pm. At HMP Forest Bank, on the 9^thAugust, at 2:40pm a drone dropped several packages onto the exercise yard while prisoners were using it.

Drone operators are so blatant that they will repeat flights night after night. In September at HMP Barlinnie the same drone flew into the jail seven times, on seven consecutive nights, at approximately the same time, and from the exact same location. Despite this being reported to Police Scotland and the Scottish Prison Service on night one, and intelligence being provided as to a potential residential address for the pilot, the police took no immediate action and have made no arrests.

When asked for comment on this incident, Police Scotland said ‘Officers were made aware of drones in the Lee Avenue area of Glasgow. Enquiries are ongoing and we are working closely with the Scottish Prison Service’, and the Scottish Prison Service said ‘Any attempt to bring illicit substances into our establishments, including by a drone, poses a significant threat to the health and wellbeing of those in our care…we continue to work with Police Scotland, and other partners, to take action against those who attempt to breach our security.’

All these deliveries containing drugs, phones, and even weapons spread suffering, disorder and violence in our prisons. Ministry of Justice published data shows that at a national level there are significant correlations between drone sightings and self-harm, assaults and deaths in custody and anonymous sources within the department have confirmed that the correlations are even stronger at the individual prison level.

Charlie Taylor, Chief Inspector of Prisons told me that ‘The prison service has, in effect, ceded the airspace above many of our prisons to organised crime gangs. This means increasing amounts of contraband including drugs, mobile phones and weapons are getting into prisons causing violence, fear and debt for prisoners and their families. The prison service must act urgently to reduce this serious threat to the stability of our jails and the safety of those who live and work in them’.

Against all of this, the state is in disarray. There is no coordinated, national, intelligence-led effort to combat drone flights. Individual jails and police forces are being left to manage the influx of drones without proper training. Police forces are not systematically capturing drone data, there’s no centralised intelligence-gathering. Police are often unclear whether they, or the Civil Aviation Authority are responsible for handling illegal drone flights. Many drone incidents seem to be logged as ‘non-crime’, getting them off the cops’ books. Simultaneously individual jails are often not doing the basics. Many prisons have not emplaced anti-drone netting, broken windows are regularly left to provide ingress points and cell searches after drone deliveries often take far too long, meaning that contraband can be disposed of. In at least one prison service region, only a third of jails have conducted mandated ‘Counter-Unmanned Aircraft Systems’ vulnerability assessments, despite clear guidance from the security services on the process which should be followed.

Even worse, it was not always like this. In 2015/16, the Home Office and Ministry of Justice established Operation Trenton, in response to fears about drone flights into prisons. Trenton was led by Steve Tisseyre, at the time a Detective Sergeant, and now Managing Director of Aerial Defence Ltd.

Steve has spoken to me in detail, and what he’s shared is astonishing. His testimony reveals a scandalous failure at the heart of the justice system.

If you’d like to learn exactly what Trenton did, how successful it was, why the state closed it down, and how they seem to have forgotten its lessons, then please pay to subscribe.