Drone caught airdropping contraband into HMP Wandsworth Prison
Footage shared by the BBC Newsnight on Monday (14 July) shows the unmanned aerial vehicle hovering above the south London jail before appearing to drop an item onto prison grounds in the early hours of 21 June.
Commenting on the clip, President of the Prison Governors Association, Tom Wheatley said that drone drops are a 'significant' problem that are 'happening every day'.
The government has not commented on the specific footage from the category B men's prison - which is home to sex offenders and terrorists - but said it is taking action against drone dropping, with £10m being spent on anti-drone measures.
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Telegraph
25 minutes ago
- Telegraph
Prisoners released early in ‘sentencing error'
Criminals have been released from jail early 'in error' or illegally held longer than their release date at a 'dysfunctional' jail, watchdogs have revealed. Charlie Taylor, the chief inspector of prisons, has served an urgent notification on HMP Pentonville after discovering that scores of inmates have been kept in prison after they should have been freed or accidentally released early because staff 'failed to calculate sentences accurately'. The watchdog said data from the prison showed 130 inmates – 20 per cent of those eligible for release – had been held illegally after their release date in the past six months. Ten prisoners were released early 'in error' between July 2024 and June 2025. In a letter to the Justice Secretary, the chief inspector said arrangements for new prisoners' first night at the north London jail and induction were 'chaotic and even frightening'. Men were held in dirty cells missing bedding, furniture, telephones and pillows, the watchdog said. The majority of prisoners were locked in their cells for more than 22 hours a day. The report also said 60 per cent of prisoners were sharing cells designed for one person, many living areas were dirty and there was a widespread infestation of mice and cockroaches. Inspectors took emergency action after they found oversight of prisoners under constant supervision was 'shockingly poor', with one prison officer found asleep, two reading books and another 'completely absent'. The 'unacceptable practices' in the care of prisoners under constant supervision was a particular concern for inspectors given three suicides at the jail in 2025. 'Shocking failures' Mr Taylor said: 'Pentonville is an overcrowded, inner-city, Victorian prison with a record of poor performance over many years. 'Too many of its staff have become disillusioned about the possibility of improvement or their capacity to affect change. Yet many of its shocking failures are firmly within the control of leaders. 'The governor will need significant support and investment from HM Prison and Probation Service to strengthen his senior leadership team, re-focus on the basics and put in place effective oversight and assurance systems to turn this failing prison around.' A survey of prisoners also revealed that 44 per cent told inspectors they felt unsafe at the time of inspection, which the watchdog said was the highest figure recorded during his tenure as chief inspector. Pentonville is the 10th prison to be issued with an urgent notification since November 2022, following Exeter, Cookham Wood Young Offender Institution, Woodhill, Bedford, Wandsworth, Rochester, Manchester and Winchester prisons. The emergency measure was introduced in 2017 as a way to raise immediate concerns following an inspection, which requires a response and action plan by the Justice Secretary within 28 days. Elsewhere, the inspector's report also found that when releases were planned, 23 per cent of those prisoners were homeless on the day they were released, and very few had employment on release. 'Undermines effective sentence planning' Reacting to the urgent notification, Pia Sinha, the Prison Reform Trust chief executive, said: 'Prisoners illegally held after they should have been released, or others released early in error, further undermine effective sentence planning and erode public confidence. 'This urgent notification must be a rallying cry for immediate action – fix the failing infrastructure, improve staff training and treat prisoners with dignity.' Andrew Neilson, the director of campaigns at the Howard League for Penal Reform, said the findings of the inspection were 'outrageous' and represent a 'new low' for an overcrowded public service on the brink of collapse. He added: 'While the Government inherited a dire state of affairs in prisons, it has had more than a year to bring about change. 'As report cards go, such a dire account of dysfunction in Pentonville instils little confidence that ministers have a grip of the situation.'
The Sun
25 minutes ago
- The Sun
How UK became hotbed for female paedophiles preying on kids as young as TWO… including mum who molested disabled son
BRITAIN is becoming a hotbed for female sex abusers, with experts claiming official figures are 'just the tip of a very large iceberg'. A Sun probe today reveals 20 per cent of anonymous calls to one charity's helpline over the past eight years were from callers who had been sexually abused by a female in their childhood. 7 And the number of reported cases of female-perpetrated child sexual abuse in England and Wales rose by 84 per cent in the four years to 2019. Just last week former PE teacher Bronwen James, 29, appeared at Salisbury Magistrates' Court charged with a string of sex offences against three children - two girls aged 14 and 15, and a 16-year-old boy. She is also accused of making an indecent image of a child and having sexual communications with a girl aged between 13 to 15 - with all the offences allegedly taking place over a three-year period while James was teaching PE at Hardenhuish School in Chippenham and Bitterne Park School in Southampton. Thousands of Brits have been sexually abused as children by women but many are too terrified to come forward to police because of the 'stigma' attached to it. Exclusive data from the National Association for People Abused in Childhood [NAPAC], shows that 8,818 call logs related to females sexually abusing children out of a total of 44,281 calls between July 2016 and April 2025. Gabrielle Shaw, chief executive of the NAPAC tells The Sun: 'It shocks people to hear, but we speak to survivors every week who were sexually abused by a woman. 'Many have stayed silent for years, crushed by shame and convinced no one would believe them. 'But abuse is abuse - it doesn't matter who did it. What matters is that survivors know they're not alone, and help is out there.' Rotherham survivor Elizabeth Harper* was 15 when she was groomed by a woman - Shafina Ali - who drugged her and orchestrated her rape by multiple British-Pakistani men. Although Elizabeth wasn't raped by Shafina - who died before charges could be brought - she blames her for the horrific sexual abuse she endured during her teen years. She tells The Sun: 'There's this stereotype of women being maternal and loving so you don't expect them to offend, but I know just how evil they can be. 'Shafina was a monster who drugged me and facilitated my abuse. I wouldn't have suffered that if it hadn't been for her. 'I still have flashbacks of her, leaning over my bed. Every time I see a woman who looks like her, it petrifies me. 'I hope this report raises awareness of just how many women might be involved in child sexual abuse and gets people talking. 'We also need more regular criminal profiling of female perpetrators involved in horrific sexual child abuse. 'Police seem to only focus on the really high profile cases - the Lucy Letby s and the Rose West s - but there is clearly a lot of under-reporting going on. 'As a mum now, I will never understand how any woman can inflict pain on someone else's child - or their own.' Disturbing reality 7 7 The findings follow a string of high profile cases involving female child sex offenders in recent months. In June, domestic abuse activist Nicola Murray, 46, was caged for three years in Scotland for physically and sexually assaulting four children. Murray forced her tongue into the mouths of two children and made another youngster view an explicit image she had taken of a man she was dating. In March, Nichole Pratt, 25, from Leominster, Herefordshire, was jailed for seven-and-a-half years after evidence of her abusing two children was found on a USB stick and her phone. And in January, Bethany Hill, 26, from Hull, East Yorks., was jailed for eight years for sexually abusing a child with her partner Zabien Burns, 26, in a case dubbed one of the UK's "most horrific and despicable". The Lucy Faithfull Foundation (LFF), a child protection charity dedicated to preventing child sexual abuse and exploitation, says ten per cent of callers to its Stop It Now helpline who report having sexual thoughts about children but have not yet harmed a child, are women. Dr Alexandra Bailey works at the charity with women who have committed sexual offences against children, or might pose a risk to them. She tells The Sun: 'I think in society, we generally tend to think of women as being the nurturers and the carers, and certainly not individuals that would be seen to be sexually aggressive in any way. 'The problem with that is we can then deny that women are able to cause sexual harm, which we know they are.' Britain's worst female child sex offenders VANESSA GEORGE Nursery worker Vanessa George was dubbed Britain's worst female paedophile after sexually assaulting up to 64 children as young as two at a nursery in Plymouth, Devon. George was jailed for a minimum of seven years in 2009 after she filmed her abuse using her mobile phone and swapped indecent images with other paedophiles over the internet. The former classroom assistant was a trusted carer, a wife of 20 years and a mother of two teenage daughters at the time. Female paedophile Angela Allen was also convicted of child sex abuse after police investigating George's case found the women had exchanged sick images online with IT worker Colin Blanchard. CHRISTINE CALLAGHAN Christine Callaghan, then 33, from Bexhill-on-Sea, East Sussex was jailed for six years in December 2019 after she admitted four counts of child sexual abuse charges. A court heard she was paid £2,285 by another paedophile to livestream footage of herself sexually abusing a young girl over three years. The National Crime Agency caught Callaghan and paedophile Dean Petley, of Leamington Spa, Warks, who was jailed for eight years in November 2019, after investigating beast Jodie Little, 30. Little, from Huddersfield, was jailed for 12 years and four months in August 2019 for sexually abusing children for money online. SOPHIE ELMS In 2018 teenage nursery worker Sophie Elms, from Wiltshire, became Britain's youngest named female convicted paedophile after admitting 16 charges against young children. These included penetration, sexual assault, and taking and distributing indecent photographs of children aged two and three. She was 17 when she committed the offences. ROSANA AWAN In 2024, cheerleading coach Rosana Awan, 34, was sentenced to 10 years in prison at Leicester Crown Court for sexually abusing a 13-year-old girl over several years, beginning in 2013. Other shocking cases involve female family members who are often organised and ritualistic. Gabrielle says: 'This is a hidden and often misunderstood form of abuse that typically happens within families or close-knit communities. 'These survivors are 4.6 times more likely to name their grandmother as a perpetrator, and three times more likely to name an aunt. 'It's hard for most people to imagine - but that's precisely why it's been hidden for so long. 'These aren't one-off cases. They reflect a disturbing reality: women, including those in trusted care-giving roles, can and do commit abuse, sometimes as part of a wider, inter-generational pattern. 'Until we face up to that, survivors will continue to suffer in silence.' Figures from a Freedom of Information request carried out by BBC Radio 4's File On 4 show in 2021 revealed there were over 10,400 reports of female child sex abuse from 2015 to 2019 - equivalent to an average of 40 a week. Between 2015 and 2019, the numbers of reported cases of female-perpetrated child sexual abuse to police in England and Wales rose from 1,249 to 2,297 - an increase of 84 per cent. The most recent Home Office statistics, covering March 2023 to March 2024, show a 27 per cent increase in females arrested for sexual offences (up by 237 to 1,124). How many of those involved child sexual abuse is not published. Among individuals reporting their experiences of child sex abuse to the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse in England and Wales (IICSA), 16 per cent of those abused in residential care, and six per cent of those abused in other institutional contexts such as schools, sports and religious settings, said female perpetrators were involved, although in some cases these may have been other children. 'In denial' 7 One such case was that of teacher Rebecca Joynes, jailed for six-and-a-half years last July. Joynes, 30, from Salford, Greater Manchester, sexually abused two schoolboys and later had a baby with one of them after bedding him on 30 different occasions. The father of her child talked of the hold Joynes had over him in a powerful victim impact statement read out at court. He said: 'I struggled to come to terms with my abuse. I was completely in denial. 'I subsequently held back and did not fully open up to people… Rebecca was in my head that much. I would argue until I was blue in the face protecting her.' He added: 'It tore my family apart. They struggled to come to terms with the fact they sent me to school, where they believed it to be a safe environment, and this happened as a result.' It tore my family apart. They struggled to come to terms with the fact they sent me to school, where they believed it to be a safe environment, and this happened as a result Child sexual abuse survivor Overall, female child sex abuse rates are still far lower than they are for male child sex abusers. According to the Centre of Expertise on Child Sexual Abuse (CSA Centre) males account for 92 per cent of the abusers. The most recent data from the UK Office for National Statistics shows 3.8 per cent of child sexual abuse survivors say their perpetrator was a female. A further 4.5 per cent reported their abuse was by both a male and female. 'Tip of a very large iceberg' But forensic psychologist Dr Joe Sullivan warns: 'The official statistics are like the tip of a very large iceberg.' While based in the Behavioural Analysis Unit (BAU) of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection (CEOP) Centre, Dr Sullivan assisted police in many of the UK's highest profile investigations into the disappearance, sexual abuse, exploitation and sexual murder of children. He tells The Sun: 'The problem with relying on official crime statistics is that they only relate to people who were accused, investigated, prosecuted and convicted. 'Victim/survivor studies suggest that approximately 95 per cent never report child sexual abuse. 'Of the five per cent who do, the vast majority will never see their allegation result in a conviction. 'Hence, most female perpetrators of child sexual abuse never come to the attention of the police and therefore don't get classified as sex offenders.' Victim/survivor studies suggest that approximately 95 per cent never report child sexual abuse... Hence, most female perpetrators of child sexual abuse never come to the attention of the police and therefore don't get classified as sex offenders Dr Joe Sullivan The latest Ministry of Justice figures help support what Dr Sullivan says. They reveal 6,825 offenders were found guilty of child abuse in England and Wales in 2024. Of them, there were just 67 convictions of female abusers. NAPAC says the stigma attached to being abused is a contributing reason many people won't reach out for help. Gabrielle adds: 'Survivors often carry deep shame when the perpetrator was a woman. 'This stigma affects both male and female survivors equally and is fuelled by harmful myths like 'boys enjoy it' or women don't do that sort of thing'. These ideas silence people, sometimes for decades.' 'Rationalise' sick behaviour Like men, female abusers will often justify, minimise or rationalise their behaviour. Dr Sullivan, who has interviewed hundreds of perpetrators of child sexual abuse over her 39-year career says: 'One mother described how she sexually abused her severely physically and mentally disabled son to allow him to experience sex with another person, because his condition deprived him of that opportunity. 'A foster carer that I worked with described a grooming process with two boys in her care which involved showing them adult movies and then offering to let the boys do what they had seen in the movies to her. 'Another mother described how she began sexually abusing her daughter as an infant to normalise the abuse and manipulate her daughter into believing there was nothing unusual with what was happening.' The Home Secretary announced a raft of new measures and an investment of £10million to tackle child sexual abuse earlier this year. A Home Office spokesperson said: 'We are determined to bring the perpetrators of child sexual abuse to justice, regardless of whether they are male or female. 'We are strengthening law enforcement's response, both to tackle the historic cases that were not properly investigated, and also to stamp out the abuse still taking place today.' *Elizabeth Harper is not her real name. 7 7
BBC News
25 minutes ago
- BBC News
Oxfordshire teacher banned for sexually inappropriate behaviour
A teacher has been indefinitely banned from the profession, after his behaviour was judged to be that of someone "in the early stages of pursuing inappropriate sexual relationships with pupils".Karl Smith had been head of computing at The Warriner School, in Bloxham, when the inappropriate behaviour took place.A Teaching Regulation Agency (TRA) panel found Mr Smith privately messaged a female student outside of school, whilst also hugging her and another student during separate was also found that the former teacher had told another female student that it was "good it's non-school uniform-day" as people could "see how beautiful you really are". Concerns were first raised by a pupil about Mr Smith in November 2022, with the school launching an investigation and suspending the teacher - before referring the case to the TRA.A TRA panel found Mr Smith had established a private messaging channel and shared his personal contact details with a female pupil he knew to be the messages, the then-teacher referenced his "dashing good looks", said he was "pretty damn lonely", and told the pupil: "Maybe I'm just a sucker for a pretty face."He later told the student to delete the messages exchanged between the pair. Mr Smith was also found to have called a pupil "beautiful" in a separate incident - which the student told the school investigation had been "creepy and more than a normal compliment to come from a teacher".The TRA panel's judgement found that Mr Smith's actions "had many of the hallmarks of someone in the early stages of pursuing inappropriate sexual relationships with pupils".In prohibiting him from teaching in England, the judgement said: "The panel considered Mr Smith's conduct was not minor in nature, or a mere temporary lapse. It was a sustained course of action."The former-teacher, in a statement to the panel, said: "Even though I was not in my right mind at the time, it was still wrong and should never had happened." "I deeply regret my part in all of this, not just because it has destroyed me mentally, but because of the impact that my actions have had on the young people affected."In a statement, The Warriner School said it "takes all safeguarding extremely seriously, with the safety of our students our priority"."As soon as this was brought to our attention, we took swift action, seeking and following the advice of the Local Authority Designated Officer for Safeguarding and the police," the school said, adding that it had engaged with the TRA process "throughout". You can follow BBC Oxfordshire on Facebook, X (Twitter), or Instagram.
