A prison inmate was forced to take part in a scheme to smuggle mobile phones into a jail because he owed money for tobacco.

Burglar Shaun Bennett, from Tiverton, was nearing the end of his sentence at Channings Wood, near Newton Abbot, when he ran up a debt to another prisoner.

He was told the debt would be written off if he took the risk of picking up a parcel of phones, chargers and SIM cards which had been thrown over a perimeter fence.

He was spotted by a civilian member of staff who alerted prison officers. He was stopped, searched, and the contraband was found, Exeter Crown Court was told.

Bennett, aged 42, of Beech Road, Tiverton, admitted possessing prohibited items and was jailed for eight months, suspended for a year, and ordered to do 120 hours’ unpaid community work and 45 days’ rehabilitation activities by Recorder Mr Howard Palmer, QC.

He told him he would normally have received an immediate term but he was suspending the sentence because Bennett has already served more than a month extra because of this offence.

He said: ’I am giving you a chance to make a go of your life outside prison. I hope the unpaid work will be concentrated in the early days after your release to get you back in the work ethic.

’The rehabilitation activities will also enable the probation service to supervise your progress and offer assistance to help you keep off heroin and stay on the straight and narrow.’

Mr William Parkhill, prosecuting, said in March a member of staff noticed Bennett picking up something which appeared to have been thrown over the fence.

They notified officers who found the phones. Bennett was not interviewed by police for another six months, at which stage he made no comment.

Miss Emmi Wilson, mitigating, urged the judge to take account of a probation report which said Bennett had overcome a heroin addiction while serving his sentence and was now totally free of drugs.

She said during his time in Channings Wood Bennett had become a senior chef and had a chance of getting work as a cook with a brewery company, whose representative had visited the jail and been impressed by him.

She said he had been forced to collect the phones to pay off a tobacco debt. She added: ’He was the person sent to collect the phones. He was not to be the end user.’

Bennett is a serial burglar whose last sentence of three years was imposed for a raid on a house at Budlake, near Broadclyst, which was empty while the owners were on holiday.

He had been released a month earlier from a four-year sentence for breaking into 15 different homes in Tiverton, Starcross and Exeter, and was living in Smythen Street, Exeter, at the time of his arrest.