A drug user has been jailed after he got himself arrested so he could smuggle heroin into Exeter Prison.
Gary Leggett owed £1,000 to dealers in Plymouth and agreed to take part in the scam in return for them writing off the cash.
He made sure he was caught when he broke into a car and then hid a large lump of drugs inside his body on the morning he was due to go to court to be sentenced.
He was sent to jail with the drugs still concealed inside him but his plan was discovered after a governor noticed he was unduly nervous while being booked into the prison.
The idea had been for him to remove the drugs once admitted and then put them in a pre-agreed hiding place in the exercise yard, Exeter Crown Court was told.
The package was worth up to £2,700 on the streets but drugs are far more valuable inside jail and the same amount would have netted someone around £11,000 if the plan had worked.
Leggett, aged 35, of Vinstone Way, Plymouth, admitted possession of heroin with intent to supply and theft and was jailed for a year by Recorder Mr Robin Belben.
He told him:"You took a significant quantity of a class A drug into prison and I sentence you on the basis of your explanation you had drug debts.
"You were told by your dealer you could wipe them out by committing an offence for which you were sent to prison and taking with you this amount of heroin valued at between £6,000 and £11,000.
"Taking drugs into prison for whatever reason is serious because they are clearly going to be distributed by a network of people inside prison."
Mr Jonathan Barnes, prosecuting, said deputy governor David Crawford became suspicious of Leggett when he arrived after receiving a seven week sentence in October last year.
Leggett broke down in tears when he was challenged and produced 27.49 grams of heroin from his body. He said he had been asked to leave the drugs in the exercise yard for someone else who he did not know to pick up.
Mr Barnes said "He said he was in debt for drugs and was told by his suppliers if he committed an offence and went to prison he could take a package in and he would be free from his debt of £1,000.
"We accept he would have been under some pressure but he could and should have gone to the police before he got to the stage of smuggling drugs into prison."
Mr Malcolm Clark, defending, said Leggett is now determined to overcome his drug problem and had been assessed as suitable for a rehabilitation programme.
He said he was unable to go on it because he had re-offended by stealing a satnav from a car last month, making him ineligible for the programme which is run by the probation service.
