AN EX-PRISONER from Rugby who was caught with a banned mobile phone in his cell has escaped going back to jail after a judge heard he was getting his life back on track after being released.
Wayne Weatherson had pleaded not guilty at Warwick Crown Court to possessing a mobile phone and sim card without authority at HMP Bullingdon in Oxfordshire.
But at a pre-trial hearing Weatherson, 29, of Beechwood Court, Rugby, changed his plea to guilty and was given a nine-month community order with a rehabilitation activity for five days.
Prosecutor Rachel Pennington said that two days after Weatherson had been remanded in custody in November 2018, prison staff at HMP Bullingdon carried out a cell search.
His cellmate was seen trying to hide a mobile phone, and when it was seized and examined it was found to have Weatherson’s sim card in it.
Miss Pennington added that Weatherson, who had brought the sim card into the prison with him, did not accept possessing the phone on that day, but did accept having had it previously.
Sarah Allen, defending, said: “He has now been out of custody for over a year, and for the first time in a very long time he has stable accommodation.”
She said Weatherson was on a Methadone prescription to tackle his drug addiction, and his life was getting back on the right track.
Sentencing Weatherson, Judge Peter Cooke told him: “Usually having phones in prisons are treated as serious offences.
“But all I want to do is keep you on the right track now that you’re on that track.”
