A teenager caught smuggling marijuana into a prison has been sentenced to a week in one of its cells.
Johnathan William Reedy appeared in Hastings District Court on Thursday for attempting to break into Hawke's Bay Regional Prison on July 24.
He pleaded guilty to charges of unlawfully being in an enclosed yard and supplying marijuana.
Police prosecutor Sgt Dave Greig told the court that Reedy, 17, had climbed a perimeter fence into the prison grounds on July 24.
He was seen making a mobile phone call at a second fence before throwing two items into the prison and running off, he said. The items later were found to be an apple and a bag containing 28 grams of marijuana, Greig said.
The phone call was believed to have been to a prison inmate to ensure the items were picked up.
Reedy later told police that members of a gang had given him the apple, marijuana and mobile phone and told him to get them into the prison.
In sentencing Reedy, Judge Russell Johnson described his actions as an "affront to the system".
"It's a challenge to the very heart of the justice system. He breaks into the prison and tries to subvert it by throwing drugs in," the newspaper quoted him as saying.
