by A prison officer smuggled drugs, needles and mobile phones into a Greater Manchester prison – then tried desperately to blame an innocent colleague.
Richard Goss, 45, has finally admitted responsibility for bringing in a stash of contraband found in the washroom at HMP Buckley Hall in Rochdale on Christmas Day.
A routine check revealed an illegal consignment of alcohol, various drugs, tobacco, phones, syringes and needles. The items were found hidden in bags under clothes in a dryer.
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Suspicion fell on Goss, who was on night duty that evening. But when he was told he would be investigated he claimed he was acting under duress.
However, prosecutors said it was a “desperate and defensible lie” and that he was actually messaging a woman he met on the dating site Plenty of Fish at the time he claimed to have threatened him. outside his house.
A trial was set up at Liverpool Crown Court in February. The jury was discharged after being told ‘new evidence has come to light.’ Goss was to undergo a retrial.
However, on Tuesday (October 29) he changed his plea and admitted the six charges he faced – three counts of supplying drugs to another person and three counts of bringing an article into prison . He was sentenced to four years and two months in prison by a judge at Manchester Crown Court.
His previous trial was told that Goss, of Esmount Drive, Middleton, started working with the prison service in April 2015 and initially underwent ten weeks of intensive training. He then moved to HMP Buckley Hall, a Category C men’s prison in the Buckley area of Rochdale, north of the town centre, in December that year.
On the evening of Christmas Eve 2019 after the prisoners were then locked up, prison officers searched the ‘B’ wing washroom and found nothing suspicious, jurors at Liverpool Crown Court heard.
The following morning another officer searched it again before the prisoners were released into the wings, finding two plastic drinks bottles and three Tetra Pak cartons inside one of the two dryers.
Inside were found 18 wraps of brown resin, one wrap of green herbal cannabis, 30 wraps of tobacco, three liters of alcohol, a quantity of steroids in tablet and liquid form, three iPhones and two charging guides, some security tools, syringes, needles and some Rizla papers .
An investigation was launched and CCTV was checked, which showed that Goss was on duty on Christmas Eve and attended ‘B’ wing at around 9.45pm delivering mail across the prison.
Goss was seen carrying a backpack and a plastic bag from his car, and was seen carrying a plastic bag and a backpack, when he went into the washroom. He was suspended on December 30, 2019. As the news was delivered to him, he said words that said ‘my family was under threat.’
He was arrested and interviewed and denied taking anything into the prison but said he was from a confined area near the mess hall into ‘B’ wing during his shift.
He said he did this after being threatened by “an unknown male, with a Liverpudlian accent, who confronted him outside his home on the morning of Christmas Eve.”
When he was interviewed again in July 2020 and was shown the CCTV showing that he had not collected the items from the mess hall he changed his account, “saying that he had collected the items from a locker room within the prison administration block before era. to deliver the job throughout the prison.”
He claimed that the items were brought into the prison by a female prison officer, whom he named. In a third interview in October 2020 he claimed that he believed the man who came to his house and threatened him was linked to two prisoners, and that the female prison officer was in an inappropriate relationship with one of them.
John Richards, prosecuting at the trial, said: “The Crown says this was an attempt by the defendant to try to shift the blame towards another officer.”
He also told the jury that when CCTV and automatic number plate recognition were examined to try to identify the vehicle, Goss said the man who threatened him had used a white one.
Telematics from Goss’s rental car and an examination of his mobile phone showed that on Christmas Eve morning he parked outside his home at 7.27am, and five minutes later he was on his phone sending messages to a woman he met on the dating website ‘Plenty of Fish’.
“This could be completely inconsistent with the threat he had outside of his address in the way he describes it,” Mr Richards said.
“There is not a shred of evidence to support his account. He has changed his account and his behavior shows that he is not telling the truth.”
A proceeds of crime hearing in the Goss case is scheduled for March 19 next year.
A Ministry of Justice spokesman said: “The vast majority of our prison staff are hard-working and honest and we are committed to rooting out those who are not doing it – including by strengthening our Anti-Corruption Unit and our vetting processes strengthen.
“We are working to rebuild our prisons and tackle the drug trade in our prisons, to help offenders turn their backs on crime and keep our staff safe.”
