Mobile phones, drugs and scissors are among some of the items smuggled into Strangeways prison, according to the Manchester Evening News.

According to data obtained under the Freedom of Information Act visitors to the prison had 21 phones and 15 sim cards seized by police between January and November this year.  In each case, the item was confiscated by police and the visitor arrested.

Other confiscated items apart from phones and sim cards were a pen-knife, heroin, cannabis, four grams of cocaine, scissors, memory sticks and two diazapam anti-depressant tablets.

The newspaper reported earlier this year that prisoner Domenyk Noonan was posting regularly on the website Facebook from his cell.  This led to calls for the Government to take action against mobiles in prison, which are believed to change hands for up to £400 each.

Least year a total of 300 phones were confiscated from four prisons in Greater Manchester and Cheshire compared to 128 four years ago, and a total of eight hundred and ninety-nine phones and sim cards have been seized since 2005.

The Ministry of Justice says it has ttried to crack down on mobile phones in prisons, and imost n the recent Queen’s speech, it was proposed that possession of a phone within a prison without authorisation should be made a criminal offence.

Liberal Democrat MP for Hazel Grove, Andrew Stunell said:

“Why haven’t the government acted to put in mobile-phone blocking technology at all prisons?

“Confiscation is always going to be hit and miss, leaving the drug traffickers room to ply their trade. Blocking technology could end this at a stroke, and make prisons and prisoners safer.”

A Prison Service spokesperson said:

“The presence of illicit mobile phones presents serious risks to the security of prisons and to the safety of the public as they can be used for a range of criminal purposes.