A racist killer has been handed more jail time after prison guards discovered three mobile phones hidden inside his TV.
John Reid was caught with the contraband devices when officers carried out a routine search of his Castle Huntly cell.
The 27-year-old, who has been in and out of jail since he killed a takeaway driver when he was just 16, was sentenced to a further four months behind bars.
Reid was previously investigated by bosses at HMP Edinburgh, after mobile phone images of him sat naked in a sink full of suds emerged on social media in 2017.
The photos prompted the Scottish Government to consider a crackdown on unauthorised phone use across the prison estate.
Hidden behind TV screen
Reid, listed as an inmate at Low Moss, was not brought to Perth Sheriff Court when his case called on Wednesday.
At an earlier hearing, he admitted possession of three mobile phones and charging cables in his cell on April 16, 2021.
Fiscal depute Stewart Hamilton said: “At 11.30am, prison officers were tasked with carrying out a search of the accused’s cell.
“The television was picked up and the front panel was found to be loose at the top.
“This allowed access into the TV, behind the screen.”
The court heard that a wrap of money, alongside three mobile phones and a pink charging wire, were found packed into a rubber glove inside the television.
Reid initially denied any knowledge of the items, but came clean later on.
He is currently serving a seven year and two month stretch for two assaults in Edinburgh.
Not eligible for parole
Reid’s solicitor said his earliest release date was June 2023.
“He was due to come before the parole panel this month, but obviously with this conviction he does not fit the criteria,” she said.
Reid was punished at the jail after the phones were discovered.
He lost all of his privileges for 14 days and was placed in the prison’s segregation unit.
Sheriff Francis Gill said: “The court takes the issue of unauthorised phones in prisons very seriously.”
He ordered Reid to served another four months in jail at the end of his current sentence.
Police apology to victim’s family
Reid spent just three years in jail for killing takeaway driver Simon San with a single punch outside his family’s restaurant in Edinburgh’s Lochend Road in 2010.
He was convicted of culpable homicide at the city’s high court.
Police later apologised to the Chinese man’s family for failing to recognise that the killing was racially motivated.
An internal inquiry found that “significant failings” in investigators’ repeated denials that racial prejudice fuelled the attack.
