Boris Johnson grimaced and said ‘you are joking’ today as he was shown a body scan from a prisoner who tried to smuggle contraband into jail in a Kinder egg hidden inside his bottom.
He was at HMP Leeds after revealing a £100million plan to stop prisoners smuggling in drugs and mobile phones.
During a demonstration of an £80,000 torso scanner he was shown an archive image of a body scan which showed a Kinder egg from a child’s chocolate treat secreted inside a prisoner, which had been found to contain tobacco.
He asked the prison officer if it had been ‘ingested’ to which the warder said the inmate had ‘plugged it’, with an explanatory hand gesture. The Prime Minister was then seen to grimace and shake his head.
Staring at the image he exclaimed: ‘You are joking.’
Earlier he used the visit to outline how his new plan to halt the flow of contraband into jails would try to stop lags using their ‘alimentary systems’.
This is a medical term for the digestive system between the mouth and the backside.
Mr Johnson today became the first prime minister since David Cameron in 2012 to visit a prison.
During a demonstration of an £80,000 torso scanner at Leeds prison today (pictured) Mr Johnson was shown an archive image of a body scan which showed a Kinder egg from a child’s chocolate treat secreted inside a prisoner
The Kinder egg in the archive image shown to Mr Johnson (above) was later found to contain tobacco, which is banned in prisons, which are no- smoking areas
He toured the Victorian category B facility and met staff after pledging to roll out airport-style X-ray scanners, metal detectors and mobile phone blockers to stop criminals operating.
There has been intense concern about the ease with which prisoners appear to be able to smuggle narcotics in, as well as weapons and mobile phones – which allow them to communicate with their criminal networks on the outside.
Speaking after the visit he said: ‘What we are going to do is put £100 million into scans and checks of all kinds 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.
‘And of course what we need to do is make sure when they come out there is a proper plan to resettle them and to get them jobs and that is a huge national challenge for us.’
The inner-city jail was one of the country’s most overcrowded when it was inspected two years ago.
Tobacco has been a contraband item since smoking in jail was banned.
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.
During the 2017 inspection, 60 per cent of inmates at HMP Leeds reported that drugs were easy to get hold of in prison.
Mr Johnson visited HMP Leeds this (pictured) afternoon and met with staff at the category B facility after launching his crackdown
Mugshot: The PM (pictured at HMP Leeds today) is pledging to roll out airport-style X-ray scanners, metal detectors and mobile phone blockers to stop criminals operating
He is believed to be the first premier to make an official prison visit since David Cameron toured Wormwood Scrubs in London in 2012 (pictured)
Mr Johnson also said state agencies needed to ‘wrap their arms around’ problem families to prevent young people getting sucked into crime.
Boris Johnson ‘believes UK can get a better Brexit deal at the eleventh hour because Ireland would be ‘f****d’ by No Deal’
Boris Johnson believes the European Union will cave in and offer a new Brexitdeal at the eleventh hour because Ireland would be ‘f****d’ by a No Deal divorce, a Cabinet minister has claimed.
Mr Johnson and the EU are locked in a state of Brexit stalemate over the Irish border backstop with the Prime Minister adamant he will not agree to a deal which includes the controversial protocol.
But with the EU equally immovable in its insistence that the current divorce deal cannot be renegotiated and that inclusion of the backstop is non-negotiable a No Deal split appears a growing possibility.
However, many in the government are increasingly confident that Mr Johnson’s ‘do or die’ pledge to deliver Brexit with or without a deal by October 31 has hit home hard in Brussels.
They now believe the EU, faced with the prospect of a chaotic split on Halloween which would do significant damage to the Irish economy, will ultimately buckle.
One Cabinet minister told The Sun: ‘The EU will give us a better deal, because if they don’t Ireland is f****d. No Deal will destroy it.
Mr Johnson said: ‘I don’t want to see prisons just be factories to turn bad people worse.
‘We need to be making sure that they are educated and there’s not a culture of gangsterism and drugs in the prison system.’
It is the latest law and order announcement in a series widely seen as setting out the scene for a potential general election in the autumn linked to Brexit.
The security measures are designed to be rolled out to all jails. The X-ray scanners and the metal detectors will tackle drug smuggling, while advanced technology will block mobile phones to ensure gang bosses cannot run their operations or harass victims from inside.
The money will also help to fund technology to prevent corruption by prison staff who help offenders.
It is the latest in a series of law and order announcements designed to appeal to the Conservative Party’s grassroots and make it look tough on crime again.
In recent weeks, Mr Johnson has pledged to recruit 20,000 more police officers, expand stop-and-search powers, announced a review into sentencing and promised to spend £2.5billion creating 10,000 extra prison spaces.
He also pledged an extra £85million for the Crown Prosecution Service to improve capacity and manage caseloads, including clearing a backlog over the next two years.
It will further fuel speculation that Mr Johnson is preparing the ground for an early general election amid continuing deadlock in Parliament over Brexit.
A YouGov poll yesterday suggested the plans had gone down well with the public, who back stop-and-search 74 per cent to 14 per cent. Among Tory voters, it is 93 per cent, and 90 per cent among Brexit voters.
Labour and Lib Dem voters also back the move, with 61 per cent support from both parties.
Yesterday, Mr Johnson held a round-table meeting at Downing Street for leading figures in the criminal justice system to discuss his proposals, including Britain’s most senior police officer Cressida Dick.
Mr Johnson wants to clamp down on mobile phones which allow prisoners to communicate with their criminal networks on the outside
Mr Johnson talked with prison staff during his visit to HMP Leeds. There has been intense concern about the ease with which prisoners appear to be able to smuggle narcotics in to jails across the country
He told representatives from the police, victims’ services and other groups that ‘faster justice’ was required and cited pledges, including increasing jail capacity and employing more officers.
‘But no matter what we do with the criminal justice system, we also have to recognise that you cannot just arrest your way out of a problem,’ he added.
File photo of an airport-style body scanner
‘And I think all police officers, all representatives of the criminal justice system, will know that. You have to address the whole problem and, number one, you’ve got to stop young people becoming criminals, stop them getting on what used to be called the conveyor belt to crime, turn their lives around earlier, give them opportunities, hope and encouragement that they need.’
Others present included Home Secretary Priti Patel, Sir Brian Leveson, who served as the most senior criminal judge in England and Wales, and Solicitor General Michael Ellis QC. Discussing the 10,000 extra prison places on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme yesterday, Justice Secretary Robert Buckland insisted the pledge was new.
It was first made in 2015 by former justice secretary Michael Gove, then by his successor Liz Truss in 2016 and was also in the 2017 snap election manifesto.
Responding to the charge that just 3,500 extra places had so far been delivered, Mr Buckland insisted there would be 13,500 extra places by the mid-2020s.
He said he would focus on the 8,700 inmates living in overcrowded jails, who would take up most of the extra spaces.
Asked if the announcements were a case of ‘Johnsonian spin’, Mr Buckland said: ‘He wants to see prison being used appropriately to its fullest effect to protect the public.’
He added: ‘This isn’t a system that should be based upon targets or numbers, it should be based upon the merits of individual cases and that’s what judges do up and down our country every day.’
Mr Johnson announced on Monday that rapists and murderers could spend longer in jail as he seeks to make punishments ‘truly fit the crime’.
He ordered an urgent review into sentencing – reporting direct to Downing Street.
It will focus on violent and sexual offenders, and look at whether changes in the law are needed to lock them up for longer by not letting them out part-way through a sentence.
The review will also consider how to break the cycle of repeat offenders, perhaps making them serve longer sentences.
The Prime Minister said that dangerous criminals must be taken off the streets as he promised to ‘come down hard’ on crime and restore public confidence in the justice system.
Scottish judge FAST TRACKS Remainer MPs’ court case to prevent Boris Johnson from shutting down Parliament to force No Deal
A judge today agreed to fast track a legal challenge designed to block Boris Johnson from being able to force through a No Deal Brexit by suspending Parliament.
The legal bid, backed by more than 70 MPs and peers, is seeking to persuade the Court of Session in Edinburgh to rule that proroguing Parliament and sending MPs home to stop them thwarting No Deal would be ‘unlawful and unconstitutional’.
This morning the court case was given the green light for a substantive hearing to be held on September 6.
Campaigners wanted proceedings to get underway as soon as possible because time is running out before the current Brexit Halloween deadline which is now only 79 days away.
The legal petition was filed at the Edinburgh court which sits through the summer and had already said the case could proceed. Campaigners pursued the case in Scotland because the equivalent English court does not sit in August.
An initial hearing took place this morning before Lord Doherty to determine the timescale of when the legal challenge will be heard in full.
Mr Johnson has promised to take the UK out of the EU with or without a deal by October 31 ‘do or die’.
The Prime Minister has not ruled out suspending parliament to make sure the UK can leave the EU without a deal if his attempts to renegotiate the existing terms of divorce fail.
Pro-Remain MPs are using their summer break, with Parliament on recess until the start of September, to come up with potential ways of stopping No Deal.
Fierce clashes with the Johnson administration over Brexit are guaranteed when MPs return to Westminster with many expecting the PM to face a vote of no confidence in the coming weeks.
Boris Johnson, pictured leaving Downing Street this morning, has not ruled out suspending parliament to force through a No Deal Brexit
Jolyon Maugham from the Good Law Project, which is supporting the legal bid criticised Mr Johnson as he responded to the court’s decision
The anti-No Deal legal bid was granted permission to proceed by the Scottish courts, with campaigners stressing the urgency of the case due to the existing Brexit deadline.
A cross-party group of politicians is backing the legal petition, supported by the Good Law Project, which won a victory at the European Court of Justice last year over whether the UK could unilaterally cancel Brexit by revoking Article 50.
Jolyon Maugham QC, director of the Good Law Project, said: ‘A man with no mandate seeks to cancel Parliament for fear it will stop him inflicting on an unwilling public an outcome they did not vote for and do not want.
‘That’s certainly not democracy and I expect our courts to say it’s not the law.’
Mr Maugham described Mr Johnson as ‘The Charlatan’ as he responded to the news that the case will be heard long before the October 31 deadline.
Labour MP Ian Murray is one of the politicians to have signed the petition and he said: ‘When Boris Johnson unveiled his vacuous slogan ‘taking back control’, voters weren’t told that this could mean shutting down Parliament.
‘The Prime Minister’s undemocratic proposal to hold Westminster in contempt simply can’t go unchallenged.
‘On behalf of voters across the UK, this cross-party legal challenge aims to prevent him riding roughshod over British democracy.
‘A No Deal Brexit would be catastrophic for Scotland and the UK, and voters deserve a final say on whether they want to keep the best deal we have and remain in the EU.’
The legal papers state: ‘Seeking to use the power to prorogue Parliament to avoid further parliamentary participation in the withdrawal of the UK from the EU is both unlawful and unconstitutional.’
Warning that ‘the exercise of the power of prorogation would have irreversible legal, constitutional and practical implications for the United Kingdom’, the challenge calls for the court to declare that suspending Parliament before October 31 would be both unconstitutional and unlawful by denying MPs and the Lords the chance to debate and approve the decision.
MPs have already moved to make proroguing parliament more difficult.
They successfully amended legislation earlier this year which requires the government to publish regular statements and hold debates in the House of Commons about efforts to restore power sharing in Northern Ireland.
The first of those statements will be published on September 4 with the first debate due to take place on September 9.
The idea behind forcing the government to publish regular updates to the Commons was to make it almost impossible to suspend parliament because failure to update MPs would risk breaking the law.
The government also believes September 9 will be the first Brexit showdown with Europhile MPs.
Government sources believe MPs could try to use the debate to force a vote to take control of proceedings in the Commons in order to pass anti-No Deal legislation.
Allies of Mr Johnson have previously insisted he has no intention of proroguing Parliament and that efforts to stop it from happening were therefore a waste of time.
