Yahoo News Mum 'bragged she was best' at smuggling drugs into Dovegate Prison
A mum boasted about being the 'best' at smuggling drugs into a Staffordshire prison. Katie Wilkinson used a hole in her jeans to slip cocaine and cannabis, valued at thousands of pounds, into jails across the area,
She "advertised herself as available" to work as a mule while "desperate" to support her own drug habit. And messages revealed she had smuggled crack cocaine into HMP Dovegate where many of Stoke-on-Trent's criminals are incarcerated.
But she today avoided being put behind bars herself. Liverpool Crown Court heard that Wilkinson had visited HMP Risley in Warrington on November 3, 2022, with the intention of seeing an inmate. The 38-year-old was caught handing over a package to the prisoner, which was later discovered to contain 7.6g of 80 per cent pure cocaine.
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Prosecutor Christopher Hopkins explained that the drugs could fetch up to £7,500 within the prison system. The package also held 93g of cannabis resin, potentially worth around £2,600 inside.
Following her arrest, Wilkinson's mobile phone was confiscated. An examination of the device revealed evidence of her "involvement in the street supply of cocaine", reports the Liverpool Echo.
Messages revealed that she was also "involved in taking crack cocaine into custodial institutions", with references made to smuggling the class A drug into Risley prison, HMP Forest Bank in Salford, as well as HMP Dovegate near Uttoxeter. Mr Hopkins highlighted a text sent "in the context of taking drugs into prison", where Wilkinson boasted: "They don't call me Katie, the best in the North West, for nothing."
In another message, she described how she "usually plugged it and wore jeans with a hole in" during her visits to prisons. The prosecutor noted that at the time, she seemed "desperate for drugs", frequently "asking for money or drugs on tick".
Wilkinson had one "relevant" prior conviction for allowing a premises to be used for cannabis production in 2011, receiving a suspended sentence. She was scheduled to face judgment for her recent crimes earlier this month but missed court after being admitted to the Royal Bolton Hospital.
Mark Shanks, defending, informed the court: "She did not attend on the last occasion as she was passing out due to her depression and anxiety, linked, unsurprisingly, to this hearing and the worry of what is going to happen to her. She knows exactly what is at the forefront of your honour's mind. She is extremely worried about what is going to happen.
"She is seeing drug counsellors off her own back. She previously would have taken alcohol to self medicate, and that has stopped as well. She has made huge strides.
"It is my submission that this is a very exceptional case, not least because of the time which has elapsed and the excellent work that she has done in getting herself away from figures who have been in her life all of her adult life. It is extremely difficult to remove one's self from these circles, but she has managed to do it.
"She is here today with her partner. She is looking at obtaining work. She is keen to do that. She has started the process of seeking contact with her children, some of whom are adults now.
"There are a 16-year-old and a 14-year-old living with this defendant's parents, who are in ill health. She is instigating, through social services, contact with her three youngest children.
"This is a woman who has made huge strides in her personal life to get herself back to where we want her to be. An immediate term of imprisonment will disrupt that significantly."
Wilkinson, of Spring Gardens in Atherton, Greater Manchester, pleaded guilty to two counts of conveying a prohibited article into prison and involvement in supplying cocaine. She received a 20-month jail sentence suspended for 18 months, alongside a 12-month drug rehabilitation requirement and a rehabilitation activity requirement of up to 15 days.
Judge Neil Flewitt KC acknowledged she had previously been "advertising herself as available" for smuggling drugs into prisons, but remarked on her "impressive progress" by stating in his sentencing remarks: "I am sure that you appreciate just how close you have come to going into immediate custody.
"It is clear from what the Court of Appeal has said, that people in your situation, however much sympathy the court may have, should go to prison to deter other people from doing the same thing.
"But there are, in my judgement, some unusual features of this case. The most significant of these is that there has been a long and unjustified delay in getting to this stage.
"The offences which you committed involved taking cocaine and cannabis resin into prison, the street supply of crack cocaine and taking crack cocaine into prison on a number of occasions back in the autumn of 2022, at a time in your life when you were chronically addicted to class A drugs and would do anything to get drugs. A lot has changed since then.
"You have done everything you could reasonably be expected to do to put that behind you. You tell me that you are no longer addicted to drugs, you have a new, non-abusive partner, you have stable accommodation, you are taking all the support offered to you and you are seeking to reengage with your children.
"I hope for your sake and their sake that things continue to move forward. I imagine that the last thing you want is to go back to the sort of desperation that controlled your life in 2022.
"I am going to take a wholly exceptional course and suspend the sentence of imprisonment, because I am satisfied that there is a realistic prospect of rehabilitation and because I think that if it is not done now then it is probably never going to happen.
"If you go back to prison and lose everything you have worked for, the chances of you relapsing are quite high. If you keep at that and get through this period of the suspended sentence, hopefully you will be able to live a life clean from drugs. If you fall back into old ways, you will fall back to me and I will remember today."
