Five months for trying to smuggle prohibited items into prison

First trying to enter as a trespasser and now entering as a legitimate occupant, an Edinboro youth will spend the next five months in prison.

Eric Bobb was charged before the Serious Offences Court with attempting to introduce into the Belle Isle Correctional Facility one cellphone, five packs of big bamboo wrapping paper, 12 packs of Pall Mall cigarettes, 15 packages of high leaf and one headset. On the same day, January 15, he was charged with having in his possession 153g of marijuana with intent to supply.

It is reported that on Monday, PC Pompey was on duty at the prison when he spotted Bobb moving towards the institution with a black plastic bag in his hand. Appearing to recognize police presence, the defendant tried to hide the plastic bag under some bamboo nearby. The officer apprehended Bobb when he tried to walk away and took him back to where he saw him hiding the bag. He was able to find said bag, and opening it, revealed what seemed to be cannabis. “Officer, the man give me for drop off,” Bobb apparently said.

Searching the bag to a further extent, the officer then found the rest of the items that the defendant had also been carrying with him at the time and was also charged for.

The defendant chose not to say anything, but Chief Magistrate Rechanne Browne-Matthias asked him, “You understood the nature of your assignment?” He responded that he did.

“It’s an extremely serious offence,” she commented, “and that was a lot of prohibited articles.” Turning to the arresting officer, who was in the courtroom at the time, she stated, “and I must commend Mr Pompey for his vigilance,” saying that it was “very, very good work.”

For the charge of the attempt at introduction of prohibited items, five months in prison was the determined sentence. For possession of the cannabis, Bobb was sentenced to one month in the prison facility, to run concurrently with his other sentence.(KR)