Prison Officer Jailed for Smuggling Contraband into HMP Lindholme

A former prison officer has been sentenced to more than three years in jail for smuggling drugs into her workplace, concealed within a Pot Noodle. Victoria Sked, 32, was identified as a participant in an extensive smuggling and money laundering operation that involved inmates at HMP Lindholme, located near Doncaster, and their associates. This criminal network, composed of prisoners, their partners, and relatives, supplied the correctional facility with mobile phones, steroids, tobacco, and other prohibited items between 2018 and 2019. Sked, currently incarcerated at HMP New Hall, was one of 10 defendants who received sentences at Sheffield Crown Court on Friday, all having admitted their involvement in the plot. According to South Yorkshire Police, Sked, who resided in Stainforth, Doncaster, at the time, was arrested in 2018 on suspicion of conveying prohibited articles into prison, just days before her planned departure from the prison service. During the initial search of her person, substances such as MDMA and cannabis were discovered, along with vials of steroids, mobile phones, and tobacco. Subsequent searches at her home yielded 22 mobile phones, various drugs, £7,900 in cash, and a list of her accomplices who had assisted in distributing contraband between 2018 and 2019. Simie McGinley, Jack McGlen, Gareth Roberts, and Robert Williams were all inmates at the time and were implicated in the illegal supply of drugs and other contraband. McGinley’s partner Ayesha Martin, McGlen’s partner Alicia Harrison, and Roberts’ girlfriend Diane Monks were all apprehended while attempting to bring drugs into the prison. Other individuals involved in the criminal network included Darren Morgan, Adam Kirk, and Abigail Cater, who is the sister of an inmate. Those sentenced at Sheffield Crown Court on Friday include: Monks, 46, of Highfield Villas, Sherburn in Elmet, Leeds, who pleaded guilty to smuggling cannabis and Spice, is scheduled for sentencing at Sheffield Crown Court next Friday. Another defendant, Lydia Ratcliffe, 30, of Chestnut Grove, Hyde Park, Leeds, was given a 12-month conditional discharge at Sheffield Crown Court in July 2024. She had pleaded guilty to “transmitting, or causing to be transmit, any image from inside a prison.” She was found not guilty of a money laundering offence. Detective Constable Scott Jarvis from South Yorkshire Police commented: “They all played their part in creating this elaborate web of drug smuggling and money laundering that they thought was intangible, and it is thanks to the hard work of this unit in bringing the conspirators of these crimes to justice.”