by Keith Hunt

A prison officer has been locked up for 20 months for smuggling drugs and other banned items for an inmate.

A judge told Scott Price the case was "very sad", as he had been a long-standing employee, an upstanding member of society and a family man.

The 31-year-old father, of Stiles Close, Minster, admitted two charges of conveying articles into prison and asked for three similar offences to be considered.

Maidstone Crown Court heard Price had worked at Elmley Prison at Eastchurch for 10 years when on August 17 he was searched as he arrived for a night shift.

Martin Yale, prosecuting, said three grammes of skunk cannabis and a mobile phone and charger were found in a folder Price was carrying.

He told police he was handed them in a park off Minster Road and asked to take them to a prisoner.

Price admitted he had taken drugs and other prohibited items into the jail on other occasions. He said he had been approached in a pub in Queenborough and was paid £500 each time.

Rose Burns, defending, whose two children are aged seven and three, was ashamed. "He can't express the depth of his self-loathing," she said.

He agreed to take the cannabis and phone into prison because he knew the family of those involved had a reputation for violence.

Judge Charles Macdonald QC told Price, who will serve his sentence in London's tough Belmarsh Prison: "Very unfortunately, you have gone wrong in falling into bad company socially with someone related to an inmate."