A group of four people, including a prison officer, schemed to smuggle cannabis and tobacco into HMP Birmingham using an elaborate plan
A crooked prison officer conspired with three others, including her inmate boyfriend, to smuggle contraband into Birmingham’s prison. Carla Moskot-Brettell, a custody officer at HMP Hewell in Worcestershire, made efforts to slip items such as cannabis and tobacco into HMP Birmingham.
The 35-year-old worked alongside her partner, Darren Oakes, a serving prisoner at the Winson Green facility, to get the illegal items behind bars.
The pair collaborated with Louise Docker and Patricia Bucknell, both from the Black Country, to prepare and wrap cannabis in cling film. This was then stashed inside a surgical glove that Moskot-Brettell pinched from the prison she worked at. The packages were laced with spices to throw off the scent of search dogs deployed at the prison.
It comes after another prison officer faces the prospect of jail after a ‘fling’ with an inmate. The packages were smuggled into the jail by Bucknell during social visits with Oakes. Once inside, the gloves were hidden in food orders from the social visits canteen.
They were then swallowed by Oakes, who would later induce vomiting in his cell to retrieve the packages for distribution among his fellow inmates. The scheme was exposed following an investigation by West Midlands Police’s Regional Organised Crime Unit (ROCU) into Moskot-Brettell’s conduct.
All four admitted guilt to conspiring to smuggle items into prison – “conspiracy to bring/throw/convey List A Prohibited articles into or out of a prison” – and received their sentences at Wolverhampton Crown Court on November 28.
Moskot-Bretell of Stour Hill, Quarry Bank in Brierley Hill was handed three years and nine months behind bars.
Darren Oakes, 47, was sentenced to three years and nine months in jail. Louise Docker of Birmingham Street, Halesowen, received two years and three months imprisonment. There is no custody image of Docker.
And Patricia Bucknell, 51, of Clent View Road, Cradley, was given two years and three months in prison.
Detective Constable Adam McHugh, from the West Midlands Regional Prison Intelligence Unit, said: “This joint investigation with the HMPPS Counter Corruption Unit demonstrates our shared commitment to uphold the values and conduct that the public expect of prison officers.
“Moskot-Brettell abused her position as a prison officer to participate in criminality that saw contraband smuggled into a prison, the very institution she worked for.
“The behaviour of Moskot-Brettell clearly erodes public trust and along with her co-conspirators, now faces time behind bars.”
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