Prison is supposed to act as a deterrent, to protect the public from any future harm. However, some can’t help but miss the point - and become repeat offenders, getting trapped in a cycle of prosecutions, hearings and prison terms.
The majority of reoffenders do so having already served their sentence. But the least repentant commit crime behind bars - from attacks, to harassment campaigns- to drug dealing.
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Here the Manchester Evening News looks back on those who broke the law while locked up - including a man who brandished a homemade ‘knife’ in his cell and a man who stalked his ex - and so landed themselves more time in jail.
Gary Brooks
Gary Brooks was due to be released after serving time in HMP Forest Bank for a number of assaults on emergency workers.
However, in May last year, whilst three prison officers were carrying out a welfare check, Brooks, 30, jumped at them with a ‘knife’ he made out of a razor attached to a stick.
The officers were able to get out unharmed, and later conducted a search of the cell, finding the blade hidden in a toilet roll, Manchester Crown Court heard.
Brooks, currently residing at Strangeways , pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to possession of an unauthorised knife or bladed weapon in prison. He was handed a 12 month jail term in June, which will be added onto his current sentence.
This means he won’t be released from custody until October 2024.
Jonathan Hardman
Thug Jonathan Hardman was already serving a prison sentence when he acquired a phone in HMP Forest Bank. He then sent ‘hundreds’ of menacing and threatening videos to his ex from his cell.
In one three-and-a-half minute video sent as a ‘repercussion’ for the woman going shopping, he said: “It’s not hard for me to do what I have done the other day to get your attention. You little f****** valve. You deserve a good f****** battering, girl. You are a vindictive little slag, like your little girls.”
Manchester Crown Court heard that in the video Hardman displayed ‘menacing and unhinged’ behaviour, and was mocking and taunting her, as well as being abusive towards her and her children.
In another video played to the court, the woman had taken a screen recording of a FaceTime call she’d had with Hardman, during which he was topless, was 'frothing at the mouth' and hit himself in the face. When she showed it to the police officer upon reporting the matters, she said: “This is what I’m scared of.”
The court heard that the woman had not provided a statement in support of the prosecution, but Hardman pleaded guilty to offences of stalking involving serious harm and distress, possession of a mobile phone whilst in prison and unauthorised use of a mobile phone in prison.
Hardman, of Kingsley Road, Worsley , was jailed in June for seven-and-a-half years with an extended licence period of four years.
Kyle Binns
Kyle Binns was jailed for a year in April 2021, following a 'shocking' and 'unprovoked' attack , and while serving time at Hindley Prison, in Wigan , the 19-year-old was placed in segregation.
At the time, Katie Jones and Adam Chesney both worked as prison officers in that unit, Bolton Crown Court heard. Ms Jones had previously put Binns on 'report' and, while doing the rounds on July 31 2021, Binns told her: "Watch what happens. I'm not a little muppet. I'll get things done."
Later that day, around 7pm, Ms Jones and Mr Chesney visited the prisoners' cells to offer them water before they locked up for the evening. When they opened the observation panel of Binns' cell, he reached his hand through and squeezed a shower gel bottle filled with urine over them both.
Binns, who already has 23 convictions for 58 offences, pleaded guilty to two counts of administering a poison or noxious substance with intent.
Binns, of no fixed abode, was jailed for nine months in a young offender institution. The sentence will start after the eight month sentence that he is currently serving for breaching a court order.
Paul Reece
Prisoner Paul Reece threatened to kill a Manchester Crown Court judge. A total of 32 letters were written to Judge Nicholas Dean KC, and were fortunately intercepted.
One of the letters included a white powder, later determined to be a decongestant. Sentencing Reece at the Old Bailey, a judge called his threats to Judge Dean 'persistent and chilling'.
Reece, 45, who also threatened to kill another judge, was already serving an indeterminate sentence for the public protection at Woodhill Prison in Milton Keynes for an attempted murder in 1996 when letters were intercepted by security staff.
Reece admitted threatening to kill Sheffield Crown Court Judge Jeremy Richardson KC and Judge Dean, who was based in Leicester at the time, before his move to Manchester Crown Court last summer. In November 2021, Reece was jailed for four-and-a-half years in prison, with a further two years on extended licence.
Aaron Brown and Adeel Sarwar
Aaron Brown was an inmate at HMP Buckley Hall in Rochdale, when he began organising a plot to smuggle £5,000 worth of drugs into prison.
After contacting former fellow prisoner Daryl Ormiston, to source the drugs, the 35-year-old recruited serving inmate Adeel Sanwar to collect the package, Minshull Street Crown Court heard.
Korey Wilkinson was tasked with throwing the package - a milk carton - over the side of the prison wall, in order for Sanwar, 28, to pick it up whilst he was working on waste management duty.
However, their plan was rumbled after prison officers intercepted the package and discovered a mixture of drugs including cannabis, cocaine, tobacco and MDMA.
Following a lengthy investigation which saw the search of their cells, officers found a Zanco babyphone concealed in a tuna tin under Brown’s bed. Conversations between Brown and Ormiston were discovered, which discussed the order due to be delivered.
Wilkinson, of Rochdale; Ormiston, of no fixed abode; and Sarwar, of Longsight , all pleaded guilty to offences of conspiring to supply class A, namely cocaine and MDMA, class B, namely cannabis, and class C drugs, namely subutex.
Brown, of no fixed abode, was convicted after a trial and was jailed for nine-and-a-half years in August last year.
Sarwar, of Beresford Road, was jailed for seven years and three months. Ormiston, of no fixed abode, was jailed for six years.
Wilkinson, of Grimes Street, was sentenced to two years imprisonment which was suspended for two years, 300 hours unpaid work and made the subject of a six-month electronically monitored curfew.
Read more of today's top stories here.
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