Drugs, weapons seized in search at Port Augusta prison

CORRECTIONS officers have confiscated a stash of contraband items from inmates in a single cell at Port Augusta Prison after a search this morning.

NOTORIOUS criminal and former escapee Anthony John Smith is facing new charges after corrections officers allegedly uncovered a stash of contraband items in his Port Augusta Prison cell yesterday.

Smith is serving a 30-year sentence with an 18-year non-parole period after pleading guilty to a series of armed robberies committed in 1999 and 2000, while he was a jail escapee.

Yesterday's search uncovered improvised weapons - including a sharpened screwdriver - a quantity of substances believed to be illicit drugs, drug paraphernalia and two mobile phones and phone chargers.

Department for Correctional Services Chief Executive David Brown said the find occurred on day three of an ongoing, centre-wide search of prisons.

"A contraband haul of this size is most unusual, and certainly a cause for concern," he said. "On this occasion the items appear to have been hidden inside a fixture in the prisoner's cell.

"The prisoner in question has a history of attempting to introduce contraband into a prison. He is resourceful and cunning."

Police will investigate how the items were smuggled into the prison.

In 1999, Smith was on the run for 12 months after slipping away from guards while visiting his father in hospital.

He was earlier being held at the Adelaide Remand Centre after being charged with the armed robbery of the Buckingham Arms Hotel, Gilberton, in February 1999.

His subsequent crime spree included the shooting of two people as he fled the scene of a bank robbery at Myrtle Bank. During his time on the run he also spent 10 days staying at the five-star Radisson Playford Hotel (now the Sebel Playford) in North Tce.

In August 2006, a search of the medium-security B-division at Yatala where Smith was housed uncovered four hacksaw blades, a pair of adjustable pliers and three mobile phones. In the 2011-12 financial year 21,629 official prison searches were carried out at Port Augusta.

The searches uncovered 128 contraband items, including 55 parcels of drugs or drug paraphernalia and 12 homemade weapons.

Across the state's nine correctional facilities during the same period, 57,057 searches were carried out and more than 1000 items confiscated.