BARLINNIE'S new governor has warned that the Glasgow prison will always have a drugs problem.

Ian Whitehead took up his post earlier this year and the 50-year-old married father-of-two from East Kilbride has insisted he won't tolerate drugs in the jail.

He revealed that a new CCTV system is now being fitted and he hopes that it will "minimise black spots."

But the former governor of HMP Shotts admits that people always will always find ever more creative ways to smuggle drugs inside and use them behind bars.

Figures obtained by the Evening Times under Freedom of Information legislation show that the number of recorded crimes of taking drugs into prisons in Glasgow has risen year on year, from zero in 2009/10 to 56 in 2013/14.

Speaking exclusively to the Evening Times, Mr Whitehead said: "I would find it very difficult to believe that in any given year that there were zero instances of drugs coming in to prison. I would say that would not be accurate.

"I'm not saying the police figures are wrong. What I'm saying is because I don't understand the context in which that information was gathered - I would have to know more about that - and if the assumption that people would make from that is that nothing happened in that year, of course something would have happened in that year.

"It's inconceivable in any prison, and certainly in a place this size, that there would be zero activity in a year of something like that."

The Evening Times revealed earlier this year that drugs are put inside Kinder Eggs and thrown over the wall when inmates are exercising in the prison yard.

Mr Whitehead said this is one of many ways that illegal items are smuggled into Barlinnie.

He said: "We don't tolerate drugs. We don't tolerate their use. We fight against it. But there are productive ways of putting things into prisons - over walls in tennis balls, for example.

"We've found mobile phones - not cheap ones, sophisticated smart phones - taped together and wrapped in something soft so they don't break when they land.

"We've found drugs in the same sort of things.

"Perhaps in volleyballs, and over it comes. Kinder Eggs are an old favourite.

"All these things we're aware of and we've got our intelligence system and intelligence management unit to help us manage that particular problem and we've got people who search.

"But we've also got 1300 prisoners who potentially are dreaming up ways to do it."

Hundreds of knives, razor blades and home-made weapons are found inside Barlinnie every year, according to figures released to the Evening Times under Freedom of Information legislation.

Drugs, mobile phones, homemade booze and urine are also regularly discovered when staff search cells. A total of 774 items were confiscated between April 2009 and April 2013 and the figure rises every year.

Mr Whitehead said: "There are two ways of looking at that. One is you get better at detection.

"The other is there's a greater number of things that are there. It's probably a mixture of the two.

"People having urine samples, trying to make weapons, having bits of property in that they really shouldn't have, these are all just real things in any prison. It's a constant tension that ebbs back and forward.

"I don't see it as a sign of failure that we find these things. I see it as a success. I think what you do is you measure accurately. You try to understand where hot spots are. You try to understand if there are things going on at particular times of day.

"You try to understand why that might be. You try to minimise the risk."

The new governor is hopeful that Barlinnie's first state-of-art CCTV system will help him police the prison.

He said: "We have got CCTV around the prison but we're just about to complete a programme of fitting out inside. It's a large programme. There will be lots and lots of cameras in the public spaces and in the halls.

"That's very much part of the landscape of any modern prison. They've got those fitted as standard.

"The issue for places like this which are much older is actually to go and retrofit devices which can help you prevent a whole series of things.

"The whole thing about CCTV, any CCTV system, is to have comprehensive coverage. It doesn't mean to say you have to have 10 cameras trained one way.

"It means you should have high quality cameras which you can control, record and review. You then minimise the amount of black spots you have."

Mr Whitehead was quick to point out he won't overly rely on the new technology and paid tribute to his staff.

Mr Whitehead said: "I think that this prison is misunderstood in some ways.

"I think that people look at the buildings from outside and it looks austere. It looks big and imposing.

"But it's full of human beings and it's full of staff, over 500 of them, whose professional job is to try and make things better for the 1300 they look after and they do a really good job of that."

peter.swindon @eveningtimes.co.uk