PM Boris Johnson visits Armley prison and vows to spend £100m on body scanners

Prime Minister Boris Johnson toured HMP Leeds, where staff told him the introduction of a state-of-the-art scanner had led to a reduction in drug smuggling and therefore violence.

Mr Johnson spent around 90 minutes touring the prison in the Armley area, where he talked to managers, guards and inmates.

He was given a demonstration of an £80,000 torso and body scanner which is used on new inmates, recalled prisoners and those who have been to court, and which uses sophisticated X-ray imaging to detect contraband.

WATCH: Our political correspondent Joe Pike has more on the story:

Since it was introduced in December:

Mr Johnson was shown a stored image of a body scan which showed a Kinder egg secreted inside a prisoner, which was later found to contain tobacco and he exclaimed: "You are joking."

Another stored image on the scanner clearly showed one mobile phone in an inmate's stomach that he had swallowed, plus another two in his bowel.

One sign on the wall of the prison stated "HMP Leeds, protecting the publicsince 1847" and the most recent inspection two years ago stated that the local Category B jail with 667 cells was one of the country's most overcrowded.

In the 2017 inspection, 60% of prisoners reported that drugs were easy toobtain.

Following the visit, Mr Johnson said the Government will spend £100 million on scanners "to protect the staff and to stop the prisoners bringing in, to put it bluntly, in their alimentary systems, drugs and mobile phones, which greatly degrade the life in prisons".