How gangs are planting prison officers in jails: Cartels are getting 'clean' members to work behind bars as 'sleeper agents' so they can pump drugs across Britain's prisons

Gang bosses are infiltrating jails by paying people with no criminal record to become prison officers and act as 'sleeper' agents for their drug smuggling operations, the chief inspector of prisons has warned.

Charlie Taylor said 'very sophisticated organised crime groups' were employing so-called clean skins to take roles inside jails - where drugs are three times more expensive than on the streets.

Former prison guards told MailOnline that a crisis in recruitment and retention is being exploited by organised criminals as a chance to plant their own associates inside jails or corrupt existing officers. 

Linda Sage, a criminal psychologist with 40 years' experience inside prisons, said offenders were 'skillful' at exploiting social links with employees' families and friends while also deploying threats and bribery. 

Mr Taylor said he has become 'increasingly concerned' about the amount of drugs that are finding their way into prisons. In a recent inspection of HMP Hindley, near Wigan, more than half of inmates tested positive for illicit substances. 

He described in a blog how gangs were 'effectively putting a sleeper into a prison – someone who has no criminal record, has no direct connections, and applies for a job as a prison officer'. 

These officers would then 'become established and be able to begin to bring drugs into the jail having worked out where the weaknesses are in any security systems in place'. 

There have been a series of recent prosecutions of prison staff for smuggling drugs into prisons, although no evidence has been presented to show they were recruited by gangs before taking their jobs. 

Last year saw the prosecution of the UK's biggest prison drug-smuggling gang at HMP Lindholme in South Yorkshire, which mental health nurse Amy Hatfield 'flooded' with more than £1million worth of narcotics after being recruited by her inmate lover Joseph Whittingham.

In November, prison officer Martin Mills admitted sneaking drugs inside boxes of cereal into HMP Hewell in Worcestershire - working as part of a conspiracy alongside at least eight other people. 

And in December, prison employability tutor Jason Taylor was jailed for 32 months after bringing sheets of paper infused with spice into HMP Berwyn in Wrexham - where no less than 18 female staff have had affairs with inmates. 

Vanessa Frake, former Head of Security at Wormwood Scrubs and author of best-selling book, The Governor, said 'poor recruitment techniques' were partly to blame for the surge of drug use behind bars. 

She told MailOnline: 'The problem is exacerbated by poor recruitment techniques, fewer people wanting to join a crumbling service, overcrowding, staff shortages and gangs taking advantage of all this.

'When I worked at Scrubs we believed people would get themselves into prison on short sentences with drugs concealed inside them to deal. 

'But then, recruitment techniques were much better and so the likelihood of staff being specifically recruited were much less likely.'

One former prison officer said the need to recruit staff to a failing service had made the admissions criteria more lax. 

Speaking to MailOnline on condition of anonymity, he said: 'When I joined you had to sit an entrance exam and go through an interview, followed by three weeks being shadowed staff taking notes and nine weeks at a residential Prison Service College.

'I had to wait four years before I was eligible to sit the promotion exam and afterwards there was a simulation exercise dealing with incidents involving prisoners and staff. 

'If you got through that you were then able to apply for available posts, followed by another interview and hopefully the offer of a job.

'Now staff are applying straight from school online and sometimes being promoted within months. Austerity cuts across the public sector have decimated the Prison Service and morale within most establishments is at rock bottom.'

A second retired officer, who spent years on the wings of HMP Manchester, said the profession was becoming increasingly stressful and dangerous.

He told MailOnline: 'When I was at Strangways I discovered my home address and family details were on easily accessible website. I heard of officers who had to enter witness protection after upsetting the wrong person.

'Within the Cat A system there are people who can turn your life upside down. They can and will send people to your front door. All the Cat A officers know this and are careful. The odd one slips ups and pays the price.

'There are individuals within the Cat A system that you literally can't look at. Even prison governors feel the fear and pressure.'

He suggested the government had to commit building a US style supermax prison system where dangerous offenders were totally isolated, adding: 'Some of these people too dangerous for any contact with prison officers or anyone else.'

Linda Sage is a criminal psychologist who worked in Category A prisons for more than 40 years. She said younger, less experienced officers were far more vulnerable to 'very skilled manipulation' at the hands of inmates. 

'Working inside a prison is like no other environment, information is currency and once one inmate gleans any personal information or data on an officer, they can be vulnerable,' she told MailOnline.

'If they drive an older car, then maybe a bribe is possible, if they have children, threats are easy from contacts on the outside.

'Local recruitment has made many new officers vulnerable because, many of the prisoners can be local too, they can have social links with the officer's family or friends.

'With such a large number of new officers with less than three years experience, it leaves them open to the very skilled manipulation of prison inmates. Many career criminals make more money when they are behind bars than when they are released.' 

The Prison Officers' Association said the prospect of gangs recruiting associates to become prison officers was 'a real concern and a conceivable problem'.  

But Mark Fairhurst, its national chair, said he was 'not aware of any prosecutions that back up these claims'.

As MailOnline revealed this week, prisons are carrying out so few drugs tests that officials have stopped publishing data on the number coming back positive.

Every year jails are rated according to how well they are performing on a series of measures, including how many mandatory drugs tests come back positive.

But the latest statistical bulletin for the year 2022/23 has redacted the figures because there are so few tests being carried out.

Ian Acheson, a former prison governor, suggested a lack of prison officers to carry out the tests could be to blame.

'I have my strong suspicion this is because in many prisons, crippled by staff shortages, officers deployed to test for drugs were instead used to maintain safe unlocking ratios on the landings,' he said.

'But what it means is that we have no visibility on the national scale of the problem, which is likely to be hellish and therefore convenient to ministers and officials alike.'

A Prison Service spokesperson said: 'The overwhelming majority of our prison staff are hardworking and honest but thanks to our action – including bolstering our Counter-Corruption Unit – we are rooting out more of the small minority who are not.

'This is on top of robust vetting procedures including criminal record checks, while our £100m investment into tough security measures such as X ray body scanners is helping cut the supply of drugs entering jails.'

Do you work inside Britain's prison service or have information about prison failings? Contact rory.tingle@mailonline.co.uk