Prison ‘throw-over’ thwarted by police operation

The operation at HMP Everthorpe was mounted after prison officers received intelligence of a possible “throw over” that would be triggered by an inmate throwing an orange out of the jail.

Surveillance began at 2pm on March 22 and within 30 minutes a man acting suspiciously was spotted entering the prison grounds talking on a mobile phone and looking around.

Minutes later an orange was thrown over the wall and the man threw a package into the prison.

He was challenged but ran off and was pursued by officers on foot who chased him for about 500 metres through gardens and over fences. He was eventually arrested on suspicion of supplying controlled drugs after a struggle with one of the officers, who was quickly aided by a dog handler and a traffic officer.

The package was recovered by prison staff and was found to contain the phones, 219 grammes of cannabis resin, and a quantity of as yet unidentified tablets.

The incident was revealed in an operational policing report that will go before Humberside Police Authority next Tuesday.

The report said: “Although a simple operation in execution, the joint work between C Division, prison liaison, traffic and dog section in conjunction with the partner agency of the prison was excellent.”

Other operations contained in the report include the arrest of a man from the West Midlands who had been sleeping rough in woodland near Pocklington to be near a 13-year-old local girl he had been having sex with. His visits dated back to last October.

The man was traced to his hideout after he was seen acting suspiciously in a village.