An inmate used a hospital appointment in Brighton as a way to try to smuggle drugs into Lewes Prison.
Michael Beirne, 41, phoned his girlfriend from the prison and told her to leave cocaine and ketamine in the men’s toilets at the Sussex Eye Hospital.
Beirne, formerly of Dean Gardens, Portslade, and Bronte Drive, in Stone Cross, Pevensey, was due to be seen at the hospital, in Eastern Road, Brighton, on Wednesday 31 August 2022.
His appointment was pushed back a day so he called Lucy D’Cruze and told her to fetch the drugs and go back the next day to hide them once again.
Police said: “Beirne instructed D’Cruze to put class A drugs, namely cocaine and ketamine, in the male toilets at the Sussex Eye Hospital so that a prisoner could collect them and smuggle them into prison.
“A prison officer escorting the individual found the drugs on searching the toilets and the drugs were prevented from entering the prison.”
Beirne, of Rochester Prison, in Kent, and 47-year-old D’Cruze, of Bronte Drive, Stone Cross, were sentenced on Friday (19 April) by Judge Jeremy Gold at Brighton Crown Court.
Both had pleaded guilty to trying to smuggle prohibited drugs into a prison on behalf of a prisoner.
Judge Gold jailed Beirne for 15 months to be served consecutively to a 75-month prison sentence for a series of knifepoint robberies in Eastbourne in May 2022. He had been due for release in just over a year.
D’Cruze was given a 15-month prison sentence, suspended for two years. She was ordered to carry out 150 hours of unpaid work and rehabilitation activity.
The pair were charged last September after an investigation by the South East Regional Prisons Intelligence Team (SERPIT).
The police said that the case was “an example of the ongoing collaborative” work between the prison service and the specialist police team.
SERPIT added: “Anyone attempting to organise the supply of drugs into (prisons) should be warned that they will be identified and prosecuted.”
