£8M TO KO DRUG DRONES

Prison chief calls for cash to put grilles on windows & buy scanners

- BY NORMAN SILVESTER

SCOTLAND'S prison supremo says £8million of taxpayers cash is urgently needed to combat the waves of drones smuggling drugs into jails each day.

Organised crime groups are loading the devices with cannabis, heroin, cocaine and street valium as well as mobile phones, needles, cigarettes and knives.

The drones are then flown remotely to the windows of individual cells where the contents are sold on at massive profits.

The eye-watering cost of tackling the smuggling has been revealed by Teresa Medhurst, chief executive of the Scottish Prison Service (SPS), in a letter to Holyrood's criminal justice committee.

Medhurst wants to spend £8million to put metal grilles outside cell windows to deter drones, and more scanners to search prisoners and visitors.

The sum would also pay the cost of each jail having its own drone detection system.