Mum who smuggled £1m worth of drugs and phones into prisons caught in Bridgend after HMP Parc drop

Adcock was arrested by police in Bridgend after delivering drugs by drone into HMP Parc in Bridgend. Credit: Media Wales/South Wales Police

A mother has been jailed for smuggling around £1m worth of drugs and phones into prisons across the UK.

Lucy Adcock, 47, headed up a group who organised 22 drops in a month across six British jails before she was arrested in a Premier Inn car park in Bridgend, Merthyr Tydfil Crown Court heard.

The group used drones to sneak the contraband into jails, including the troubled HMP Parc in Bridgend.

Prosecutor Matthew Cobbe said staff at Parc Prison found a dropped package on April 24 last year containing illicit items worth £50,000 inside jails. Class A and B drugs, as well as mobile phones were inside the package.

The drone operator was not identified at this stage but two more packages were recovered from the exercise yard at Parc the following month.

Police were alerted and automatic number-plate recognition was used to identify vehicles in the area at the time.

"It wasn’t long before Lucy Adcock’s car was traced," said Mr Cobbe."She had driven down from the London area and she was stopped in the car park of the Premier Inn in Bridgend by officers later that day. She had a drone in the car with her. In fact the drone had software that could be downloaded and examined.

"The examination revealed that it had been used not just during the early hours of that morning to deliver drugs to Parc prison but it had been used on many previous occasions and other prisons across the country."

One of the prisons the group smuggled drugs into was HMP Parc in Bridgend.

It was revealed that in the month leading up to May 11, the group had flown 22 drones over five other prisons - Gartree in Leicestershire, Onley in Warwickshire, Guys Marsh in Shaftesbury, High Down in Sutton, and the Mount in Hemel Hempstead.

Analysis of Adcock's phone led to police arresting four others who were part of the scheme. Craig Davenport, Ryan Dorland, Nicola Ogle, and Emma Watson all admitted involvement in the conspiracy.Mr Cobbe said the group attached fishhooks to the packages to make them easier to grab from inside a jail cell. A sheet would be thrown out to snag onto the package and draw it in.

Packages recovered included cocaine, the painkiller Phenacetin, cannabis resin, iPhones, sim cards and tobacco.

It was estimated the group supplied items with a total prison market value of £1,099,670 to £1,426,150.

The prosecutor said Adcock "played the leading role both directing the others and taking a hands-on role".

Adcock, of Ruislip, London, Davenport, 46, of Clacton-on-Sea, Essex, and Dorland, 44, recently of HMP Brixton, were sentenced on Monday after pleading guilty to a conspiracy to convey A-list and B-list items into prison.

However Dorland maintained he was not aware there were Class A drugs among the material that went over prison walls.Judge Paul Hobson jailed Adcock for six years, Davenport for four years and nine months, and Dorland for four years. Ogle and Watson are due to be sentenced at a later date.

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