Acid thug admits smuggling mini- mobile into his jail cell
ACID- throwing thug Arthur Collins smuggled a miniature mobile phone into prison inside a crutch, a court heard yesterday.
Collins, the former fiance of reality TV star Ferne McCann, hobbled past guards with the device, two sim cards and two memory sticks inside the hollow metal tube.
He broke both ankles trying to escape arrest after wounding 14 people in a nightclub acid attack.
Warders found the smuggled items while Collins took a shower at HMP Thameside, south London, a judge was told. When questioned, he said he had phoned family and friends – including, it is believed, Ms McCann.
Collins, 25, of Broxbourne, Herts, was jailed for 20 years last week for the “cowardly and barbaric” attack at the Mangle club in Hackney, east London. Yesterday, he pleaded guilty at Bromley magistrates court, south London, to possession of a prohibited item in September.
Audrey Mogan, defending, said: “Mr Collins did not have the phone for any sinister purposes. He had it to contact family and friends, it is not a smartphone.”
Ms Mogan said Collins was fearful about using an official prison phone because he and Ms McCann had been hounded by sections of the media.
District Judge Robert Hunter sent the case to Woolwich Crown Court for sentencing on a date to be fixed.
Collins went on the run after being named as a suspect wanted for squirting acid over 22 revellers at the nightclub in April this year.
Police suspect it was part of a feud between rival drug dealers that spilled over in public, the court heard.
Collins was soon traced to an empty house in Higham Ferrers, Northants.
He broke his ankles leaping from a first- floor window and was Tasered by police as he struggled to get away.
Collins claimed he believed the liquid he threw at the crowded club was a date rape drug and not acid.
But jurors at Wood Green Crown Court found him guilty of five counts of grievous bodily harm with intent and nine of actual bodily harm.
At the time, Judge Noel Lucas described Collins as an “accomplished liar” who has shown no remorse to the victims whose lives he devastated.
Ms McCann, 27, star of ITV’s The Only Way Is Essex, was pregnant at the time of the attack. She split up with Collins and has since given birth to their daughter Sunday.
Easy to smuggle, miniature mobile phone technology poses a massive problem to prison authorities.
Prison guards recovered about 20,000 illicit phones and sim cards in 2016, and Justice Secretary David Lidington has called for a ban on sales of the lipstick- sized devices.
Advertised as undetectable by the body scanners used in England and Wales, the phones can be bought for £ 25 but are reportedly changing hands for up to £ 500 inside jails.
Inmates use them to run criminal empires from behind bars and arrange consignments of contraband.