A Highland prison officer who admitted smuggling drugs and mobile phones into a jail has had his sentence reduced on appeal.
John Wallace had been sentenced to 40 months imprisonment in March after pleading guilty at Inverness Sheriff Court.
The appeal court in Edinburgh yesterday cut the penalty to 32 months.
Inverness Sheriff Court had previously heard that Wallace, 36, was paid £1,800 to deliver the contraband over a five-month period to pay family debts.
He would place the drugs and phones into socks then into cardboard boxes labelled “Beat the Bosses Mobile Phone” and throw them over the Inverness prison wall, collecting them when next on duty.
Police were tipped off about the smuggling and Wallace’s activities were halted on March 18 when he was arrested.
Wallace admitted two charges that between October 27, 2015, and March 18, 2016, he introduced without reasonable excuse to HMP Porterfield Prison, mobile phones and cannabis resin, being prohibited articles, and repeatedly threw parcels containing the phones and cannabis over the wall into prison grounds, collected them and took them into prison.
He also pleaded guilty to being concerned in the supply of cannabis resin in the prison and elsewhere whilst acting with others.
At the time of his original sentencing in Match, Sheriff Gordon Fleetwood described his actions as a “gross breach of trust”.
Wallace’s solicitor advocate Urfan Dar told the court he was spending 23 hours a day effectively in solitary confinement because of his previous job.
The court was told in March that officers pounced when Wallace was in the Tesco Car Park at Inshes, Inverness.
He immediately told them “there’s drugs in the car”… “they’re in a red bag in the boot of the car”.
When interviewed by the police, Wallace said: “I was desperate, I didn’t know what else to do and am guilty. I am now going to lose everything and I know that. I have had a lot of time to think this morning in the cell and I know it’s coming.”