A prison officer was corrupted into smuggling a mobile phone into jail by an organised crime gang.

Heavy jail terms were handed out to members of the Liverpool and Isle of Man-based gang behind a plot to import £0.5m of cannabis into the island.

Robert Sewell, 30, who had received medals and awards while serving in the armed forces, ’betrayed the trust of his colleagues’ by smuggling a mobile phone into the jail for gang ring leader Francis Dunne and Jamie Smith who were both on remand.

He was arrested just as the Jurby jail featured in a weekly prime-time television documentary ’Best Little Prison in Britain?’.

Jailing Sewell for 12 months, Deemster Dermot Main-Thompson told him: ’I accept that you were not involved in the running of the organised crime enterprise.

’But you committed a very serious offence involving a breach of trust and that offence involved planning.

’Someone who had spent time in the services should have developed a keen sense of duty.

Unfortunately, you betrayed your colleagues.’

Sewell, of Lhoobs Road, Eairy, had originally been charged with an offence of conspiracy which would have attracted a 10 year maximum sentence.

But he changed his plea to guilty when he was offered an alternative lesser charge of bringing a prohibited article into the prison as a joint enterprise.

Sewell’s advocate Stephen Wood said his client had made a ’terrible mistake’. ’Only Mr Sewell can say why he put himself in that position,’ he said.

He said there was no evidence of financial reward and suggested his client might have suffered post traumatic stress disorder from his time in the armed services.

Dunne and Smith plotted to import 65kg of cannabis resin and 5kg of cannabis bush worth £442,423.

Two other gang members were convicted of importing 7.2kg of cannabis worth £144,496 while others were involved in handling the cash proceeds.

The fact that a mobile phone was smuggled into the jail suggested the drugs ring was continuing to operate behind bars while on remand.

Dunne, 36, of Vauxhall, Liverpool, had already been sentenced to six and a half years in jail after pleading guilty to conspiracy to import cannabis and being concerned in the supply of cannabis.

He was jailed for a further nine and a half months for the offence involving the mobile phone.

Deemster Main-Thompson said it was clear he played a leading role in the drugs conspiracy. He described the mobile phone offence as a ’very serious’ and one involving ’the corruption of a prison officer’.

Smith, of Maple Avenue, Onchan, also played leading to role in the organised crime network.

He was jailed for five years and seven months for the same drugs offences as Dunne plus a further 19 months to run consecutively for money laundering, which involved the transfer of £19,870.

Smith received a further nine and a half months, again to run consecutively, for the mobile phone offence.

The court heard that as a result of the Covid lockdown, inmates are now allowed phones in their cells, which was one defence lawyer described as ’ironic’.

Keith Bernard, 65, of Albany Road, in Douglas, who the court was told had been a respectable businessman, was convicted following a trial of receiving the £19,870 of criminal property from Smith and then transferring the money onto fellow gang member David Alsop.

He received a 12 month jail term for what the Deemster described as his ’acts of complete madness’.

Alsop, 53, of Ballacottier Meadow in Douglas, had pleaded guilty to four counts of money laundering totalling £90,450 and one count of cannabis possession.

There was no private gain, the court heard, but a private debt he owed to others would be extinguished by getting involved so there was an element or coercion.

He was jailed for a total of 24.5 months.

Darren Dooley, of Oak Avenue, Pulrose, was jailed for 32 months after pleading guilty to conspiracy to import cannabis and being concerned in the supply of the drug.

He had a previous conviction for money laundering and had been released from prison last September after which he had re-established his successful plumbing business.

The court heard he was the model of a rehabilitated offender who had offered his plumbing services for free during the Covid crisis to health workers and vulnerable residents.

But the Deemster told him: ’You chose to involve yourself in the world of drugs. You are no stranger to that world.’

Another member of the drugs conspirators, Stephen Joseph James Alty, 41, of Litherland, Liverpool, was jailed on November 10 for two years and 10 months.