A PLOT to post mobile phones and drugs worth more than £23,000 into a Portland jail was foiled when the package began to ring.

Prison officers at the Young Offender Institution were stunned when they heard a ringtone from inside the Royal Mail parcel, a judge was told.

Damien Lucian, 20, who admitted posting two parcels containing cannabis, mobile phones and SIM cards, was jailed for 18 months at Dorchester Crown Court.

Prosecutor Sadie Rizzo said Lucian had posted two packages – one containing cannabis resin, 12 mobile phones and 15 SIM cards and another containing cannabis resin, two mobile phones and 10 SIM cards – in April 2013.

The illicit items had been hidden inside a radio and a DVD player.

Miss Rizzo said: “The first parcel came to their attention by virtue of the fact that it started to ring.”

The second parcel was opened by a prison governor after the prisoner to whom it was addressed became distressed upon being told he was not allowed to receive it due to restrictions, the court heard.

Due to inflated prices of drugs in prison, the total amount of 769 grams of cannabis resin would be worth more than £23,000, Miss Rizzo added.

In mitigation, Brian St Louis told the court the offence was an ‘aberration’ in the character of his defendant, who had committed the act because he needed money to help his mother who was in debt with loan sharks.

He added: “He is genuinely remorseful.

“With the background he has, the fact that he has stayed out of trouble until this age is not insignificant. He made a stupid mistake.”

Mr St Louis said the ‘amateurish approach’ of the offence showed Lucian’s naivety.

Judge Douglas Field jailed Lucian, of High Road, Willesden, London, for 18 months on the drugs charges and 12 months on the mobile phones charges, with the sentences to be served concurrently.

Judge Field said: “Sending these sorts of articles into prison is a very serious offence, so courts are required to pass deterrent sentences. The effect of these items getting into prison is very serious indeed.”