Remo White-Channer, aged 24, and Romaine Gayle, also aged 24, were jailed for six years and six months and four years and four months respectively at Luton Crown Court on Friday, March 31 for their part in the criminal operation which spanned three counties.

To date, their sentence is the longest of its type ever handed out in relation to drone crime.

The Two men have been jailed for using drones to deliver contraband to prisons in Hertfordshire, Suffolk and Kent following an operation led by Hertfordshire Constabulary officers.

The pair pleaded guilty to using drones to deliver significant amounts of Class A and Class B drugs, as well as mobile phones, into HMP The Mount in Bovingdon, HMP Swaleside on the Isle of Sheppey in Kent and HMP Highpoint in Suffolk during the summer of 2016.

As part of an organised crime group, the pair had the finances to purchase drones worth £1,000 each. They then put together packages containing cannabis, spice and heroin, as well as iPhones, to attach to the drones and flew them into the prisons during the early hours.

It is estimated that the total value of the contraband White-Channer and Gayle flew in to all three prisons is around £48,000.

Officers were alerted to the activity by intelligence from members of the public and prison officers at HMP The Mount, after a drone crash-landed on the roof of one of the prison blocks.

Months of painstaking investigative work by detectives saw White-Channer and Gayle arrested in August 2016 after they were forensically linked to the crime.

This conviction for the criminal use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) is particularly significant for Hertfordshire as it is the first of its kind in the county.

Drones to smuggle cannabis, steroids and mobile phones into Prisons