Yahoo News Prisoners smoke pages from a Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire book sprayed in drugs
Prisoners at a UK jail smoked pages from a Harry Potter book sprayed with drugs, it has been discovered.
A copy of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire found in an HMP Nottingham cell tested positive for a psychoactive substance similar to Spice.
Nottingham has been designated as one of the UK’s most ‘challenging’ prisons.
Last year it was claimed prisoners at Leeds were smoking clothes soaked in Spice.
Prisons Minister Rory Stewart has vowed to resign from his job if he cannot turnaround the situation with regards to assaults inside the worst affected 10 UK prisons.
However, he admitted Nottingham was ‘causing concern’.
Stewart pledged in August to step down if the number of assaults did not come down by this summer.
Mr Stewart said ‘early indications’ was that violence was coming down in six or seven jails and he was now “pretty confident” he would keep his job.
However, he admitted that ‘two or three’ jails were proving difficult, including Nottingham. Wormwood Scrubs in London was another he was ‘most worried about’.
Last year, the minister was forced to apologise after claiming live on BBC radio for making up a stat about support for Brexit.
The ‘Spice-like substance’ was found on samples from the book and was detected by a new drug-testing machine, installed as part of a £1.4m investment to bolster security.
It is thought the drugs had been sprayed on to the book before it entered the prison.
Four hundred pages were missing, which staff suspected had been torn into strips and smoked.
Prison officer Adam Donegani said each strip was worth about £50.
Last year, Peter Clarke, the chief inspector of prisons, said Nottingham Prison was ‘dangerous, disrespectful and drug-ridden’.
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire was the fourth novel written by JK Rowling in the Harry Potter series.
It was published in July 2000 and made into a film five years later.
