A PRISONER has been given extra jail time for taking a delivery by drone to his cell at Dartmoor Prison in the dead of night.

Joshua Lodge, 27, has become the first inmate prosecuted for accessing the device to fly contraband over the jail’s walls — but the problem is described as prolific nationally.

Lodge, serving a sentence for a violent assault, used a pole to hook a bag hanging from a drone between the bars of his window, Plymouth Crown Court heard.

Items, including ten 50 gram packets of tobacco, eight cigarette lighters, a Vodaphone SIM card, a climbing clip and a tube of Loctite glue were found in his cell the next morning.

Police also found a mobile phone which included messages arranging delivery of items by the drone, the court heard.

Jailing Lodge for 16 months, Judge Ian Lawrie said the sentence had to include an element of deterrence.

He said: ‘The message needs to go out that the courts will not tolerate this behaviour.‘

Lodge pleaded guilty to the two offences of conspiring to bring into prison prohibited items, namely a mobile phone SIM card, and for being in possession of a specified item without authority, namely a mobile phone and SIM card.