A man has been jailed after trying to smuggle drugs and SIM cards, hidden inside a hairbrush, into Perth Prison for a convicted killer.
Liam Kinney admitted trying to sneak 6.4 grammes of cannabis resin and four SIM cards into the Edinburgh Road jail on September 8, 2019.
Kinney, of Birch Road in Glasgow, had arrived at the jail with a bag of goods for Paul Lyons, which included a suspicious hairbrush.
At Perth Sheriff Court, fiscal depute David Currie explained Kinney, 35, had arrived in the evening with items to pass on to a prisoner.
Mr Currie said: “The locus is HMP Perth’s front vestibule area.
“At around 7.47pm, prison officers were working behind the desk.
“The accused attended with a black carrier bag.”
Kinney told the officers the bag of items was for convicted road rage killer Paul Lyons.
Officers checked the bag and its contents and stumbled upon a hairbrush, which caught their attention as being “suspicious”.
The brush was put through the prison’s X-ray machine, seized and handed over to the police.
Officers found four SIM cards and the cannabis resin within the brush.
“Intellectully challenged”
Kinney admitted being concerned in the supply of the Class B drug and bringing a prohibited item into HMP Perth.
His defence solicitor described him as “extremely suggestible” and “intellectually challenged” and said the smuggling attempt was “something entirely out of character for him.”
“He’s had intellectual difficulties throughout his life,” he said.
“He’s utterly ashamed of his involvement.
“The likelihood of repetition is remote.”
Sheriff Neil Bowie jailed Kinney for a total of seven months.
The sheriff said: “The introduction of drugs into prison and the introduction of four SIM cards into prison are both significantly serious matters.”
Parcel not received
Paul Lyons, the intended recipient of the contraband, was slashed by a fellow inmate wielding a razor blade just weeks after the attempted smuggling.
Lyons suffered a wound near his carotid artery after killer David Scott lunged at him in front of children in the visiting room.
Scott, believed to have gangland links in Glasgow, screamed: “Paul Lyons is a grass and his whole family are grasses” on December 27, 2019.
