A PRISON officer has been told to expect a jail sentence following an investigation into the theft of £250,000 worth of electronic goods from HMP Forest Bank.

Paul Hewitt, 41, of James Street, Radcliffe, is one of a number of staff at the Salford prison who has admitted stealing computer games, DVDs and consoles which had been repackaged by inmates during workshops.

At Manchester Crown Court, Huw Edwards, prosecuting, said a company called LTV operated a number of workshops inside the prison where inmates worked to assist redistributing the items to various suppliers.

Mr Edwards said: “Electronic media would arrive at the prison in crates, but there was no system in place to say what was inside each of them.

“Prison staff were required to go through them and remove items such as 18-rated DVDs and other items like cigarettes or knives.”

Both Hewitt and his fellow defendant, Paul Albertson, 42, of Bermuda Road, Moreton, the Wirral, stole thousands of items which they then later sold via e-bay or second hand goods chain CEX.

Hewitt, who pleaded guilty to theft and criminal conversion, was found to have received £67,149 from e-Bay for the sale of nearly 2,000 items between January 2016 and June 2017.

Albertson, who said he would use large holdalls to remove items from the prison, had made around £95,000 over a slightly longer period.

Neither man had any previous convictions.

Judge Anthony Cross QC said he would sentence the pair on Monday, February 16 and released them on bail.