January 16, 2025 - 7:00am

There are 122 prisons in England and Wales. Within this penal archipelago stretching from Dartmoor to Hadrian’s Wall lies the Long Term and High Security Estate. This part of the prison service takes the most serious criminals — including terrorists, serial killers and child murderers — and confines them for many years in supposedly escape-proof conditions. This week, however, it has emerged that the skies above two of these “Supermax” prisons have been ceded to criminal gangs with drones.

Yesterday the Chief Inspector of Prisons, Charlie Taylor, published reports into two of these prisons, HMP Manchester and HMP Long Lartin. Given that these institutions hold dangerous offenders, including terrorist suspects on remand and on conviction, they should be some of the most secure real estate in the country. Yet in each case, criminal cartels were found operating cell window deliveries of contraband with near-total impunity.

In both jails, inspectors discovered CCTV systems allowed to fall into disrepair, as well as anti-drone netting which was missing or never even fitted. It’s no surprise that both establishments were also found to be “filthy”: when you can’t even get the bins emptied, it’s highly likely that more important standards will slide too. At Manchester, officials were slow to install anti-drone windows, which were then breached when fitted. In Long Lartin, staff were demoralised by the sheer extent of the drone deliveries and over half of prisoners said it was easy to get hold of contraband.

Why is this a scandal? For one thing, wherever drones are operating with impunity in delivering enormous quantities of drugs straight to the windows of prisoners, rehabilitation is practically impossible. Many of our most important prisons have surrendered order and control to criminal cartels which squat over a literally captive market to poison bored, highly impulsive and often psychologically disturbed young men. An unfettered drugs market will always bring violence due to debt, enforcement and competition. When this environment dominates, it is impossible to keep control of the landings let alone undo years of criminality.

Considering that these prisons hold a large number of violent extremists, it is worth noting that the drones now delivering phones and drugs with pinpoint accuracy to offenders are capable of carrying payloads of up to 15kg. They would be just as capable of delivering weapons and explosives with potentially catastrophic consequences. In 1994, long before drones were a thing, IRA prisoners escaped from supposedly escape-proof HMP Whitemoor having intimidated staff and subverted security to smuggle in two 9 mm pistols and 1.5 kg of Semtex. This kind of payload could now be delivered by a drone bought online with enough room to spare for 10kg of cocaine. Terrorists adapt and exploit technology just like the rest of us.

The final aspect of this security scandal was revealed inadvertently by politicians. Because Prisons Minister Lord Timpson is unavailable to be scrutinised by democratically elected MPs, it fell to the hapless Under-Secretary of State for Justice, Sir Nicholas Dakin, to deliver an emergency statement. He said anti-drone nets were being installed at Manchester and Long Lartin, but didn’t explain why it took the entirely random accident of an independent inspection by prison watchdogs to reveal what many senior bureaucrats in the prison service surely knew already. Timpson posted on social media that he is in “close contact” with the Chief Inspector after visiting HMP Manchester. He only needs to go down one floor in the Ministry of Justice headquarters to find out the real reason for this potentially lethal incompetence and complacency.

Neither Long Lartin or Manchester prisons are remotely overcrowded: an important distinction to make because it is often the go-to excuse of MoJ mandarins and a constellation of external supporters who depend on their largesse for any failure. As Chancellor Rachel Reeves looks for savings, it is time for Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood to abandon this cosy fiction and start asking very hard questions about an organisation that is failing to deliver for staff, prisoners and society in such fundamental ways. The Chief Operating Officer of HMPPS and the chair of its non-executive board both received CBEs in the New Years Honours list, raising the question: what does failure look like?


Ian Acheson is a former prison governor and author of Screwed: Britain’s Prison Crisis and How To Escape it.

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