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Arthur Collins: Acid attacker jailed for further eight months after smuggling mobile phone into prison inside crutch Arthur Collins: Acid attacker jailed for further eight months after smuggling mobile phone into prison inside crutch
(35 minutes later)
Acid attacker Arthur Collins has been jailed for a further eight months for smuggling a mobile phone into prison inside a crutch.Acid attacker Arthur Collins has been jailed for a further eight months for smuggling a mobile phone into prison inside a crutch.
The 25-year-old hid the device alongside two sim cards and two memory sticks while on remand in September so he could call his pregnant girlfriend in private, Woolwich Crown Court heard.The 25-year-old hid the device alongside two sim cards and two memory sticks while on remand in September so he could call his pregnant girlfriend in private, Woolwich Crown Court heard.
He admitted hiding the phone, which his lawyer said was not intended “for any sinister purpose”. He admitted hiding the phone, which his lawyer said was used “not for any sinister purpose” but to privately call his pregnant girlfriend, the reality television star Ferne McCann.
Audrey Mogan told Bromley Magistrates' Court it was used for calls to reality television star Ferne McCann, who gave birth in November. Collins' barrister, Rebecca Randall, said: “The only reason Mr Collins had that phone was to contact, privately, his girlfriend and friends and family.
“He had this phone because he and his partner had been hounded by the media,” she added. "His girlfriend at the time was heavily pregnant with his first child.
”He knows there was a phone in the cell but he knows the calls are recorded. Because of that, he was afraid that information would get out to the media.“ "That child is now two months old and occasionally visits him with its mother and his sister.”
Collins was using the walking aid because he injured his feet while on the run from police after dousing at least 16 victims with corrosive liquid in a London night club. Ms Randall said Collins feared his automatically recorded prison phone calls to Ms McCann were being leaked to the media, including one in which they discussed baby names.
Three people were temporarily blinded on Mangle E8 dancefloor in Dalston last April. “He had a conversation with his girlfriend and it appeared in the press a little time later,” the lawyer told the court.
  Collins was using the walking aid because he injured his feet while on the run from police after dousing at least 16 victims, including three who were temporarily blinded, with corrosive liquid in a London night club.
  He is already serving a 20-year sentence for hurling the acid across the Mangle E8 dancefloor in Dalston last April.
More follows… Collins, from Broxbourne in Hertfordshire, appeared at Woolwich Crown Court by video link from high-security HMP Belmarsh prison.
  He showed no emotion while being sentenced for a single charge of possessing a prohibited item while in prison.
Judge Nicholas Heathcote Williams said: “The presence of a mobile phone or component part such as a sim card has many implications, not only for the prison establishment, but also the wider environment.
"It provides a prisoner or prisoners with an opportunity to communicate they would otherwise not have.
“This therefore allows them to act in a way prison is supposed to prevent them from doing.”
The number of recorded acid attacks in the UK have risen to record levels in the past year, sparking the proposal of new laws that would criminalise carrying corrosive substances without good reason.
Police have been hampered by the current law, which means that officers need adequate suspicion to stop potential attackers or proof of malicious intent, and are unable to test seized substances in the street.
Large retailers have signed a voluntary agreement to restrict sales to over-18s and demand identification, while the Government is considered other measures to prevent the sale of potential weapons.
Additional reporting by PA