MEMBERS of a gang who were part of large scale operation to smuggle cannabis and mobile phones into various prisons including HMP Hewell in Worcestershire, have been jailed.

Birmingham Crown Court was told the offences were committed between July 2015 and May this year and involved remote controlled drones, equipped with a fishing line and hooks, being flown to cell windows where inmates - in contact with the pilot - used tools to retrieve smuggled items.

Craig Hickinbottom, described as a "leading" player in the plot, was jailed for seven years and two months.

Drone pilot Mervyn Foster, 36, of High Street, Tipton received a sentence of six years and eight months for his part in the conspiracy - which involved 49 provable drone flights and four so-called "throw-overs" of contraband.

Hickinbottom, 35, who was a prisoner at HMP Featherstone in Staffordshire, and later HMP Hewell in Worcestershire, organised deliveries to both jails during the conspiracy.

Hickinbottom's 32-year-old partner, Lisa Hodgetts, from Tividale, West Midlands, admitted money laundering and was given a 16-month suspended prison term.

Also receiving sentences were: John Quinn, 35, of Swancroft Road, Tipton, who was jailed for four years, John Hickinbottom, Craig's brother, jailed for four years and eight months, Terry Leach, 19, of Wednesbury Oak Road, Tipton, for a two-year suspended jail sentence, while Ashley Rollinson, 21, of Waiver Road, Brierley Hill was jailed for 11 months.

Meanwhile, Yvonne Hay, 41, and her boyfriend, Francis Ward, of Bloxwich Road, Walsall, were both jailed for two years and four months for their part.

Sentencing, Judge Roderick Henderson said: "Prisons are difficult enough places to run - they contain people who are dangerous and vulnerable.

"Supplying things into prison that should not be there - drugs, phones, tools and the like - threatens proper management and creates real risks of violence and loss of control and discipline.

"To do that is desperately serious."