He slipped the painkillers into a crisp packet for his son who is serving a life sentence for his role in the brutal murder of a woman in her own home
Thomas McMahon, pictured outside Hull Crown Court(Image: Hull Live)
A father smuggled painkillers into high-security Full Sutton Prison to hand over to his son, who is serving a life sentence for his involvement in a notorious brutal murder. Scheming Thomas McMahon craftily slipped the drugs into a packet of crisps and shuffled the bag across a table – but he was caught out after being spotted by eagle-eyed security staff, Hull Crown Court heard.
McMahon, 64, admitted bringing the prohibited painkillers into Full Sutton Prison, near Pocklington, on June 22 last year. The prison houses some of the country’s most dangerous and high-risk prisoners, including serial killers and terrorists.
Julia Baggs, prosecuting, said that McMahon and two women were visiting prisoner Joseph Peers, a convicted murderer, but during the visit, staff noticed that McMahon was moving his mouth. He put an item in a crisp packet.
Identical crisp packets were on a table in front of the group and they were “rotated” and moved around several times. This aroused suspicion and CCTV pictures showed McMahon’s crisp packet being moved on the table.
Staff found that there were 14 white, oval-shaped tablets inside it. “Custodial settings are notoriously rife with controlled and uncontrolled drugs,” said Miss Baggs.
“It’s a high net-worth currency. All matters involving the transportation of prohibited items into prison are very serious but this is not any sort of large-scale operation.”
McMahon was arrested. He claimed that his son had been suffering back and knee pain and that he was worried about him. The tablets were to help his son with this.
The prosecution did not accept this explanation but did not seek to challenge it, the court heard. “It was a prescribed medication for pain relief but it is abused and is bought and sold on the black market,” said Miss Baggs.
McMahon had convictions for 23 previous offences, most recently in September 2023 for being over the drug limit for cannabis. He had returned from a trip to Amsterdam at the time.
Billy Torbett, mitigating, said that McMahon’s previous conviction for drug-driving in 2023 came after he took a trip to Amsterdam because of the stress of his son’s murder trial. When he returned, there was still cannabis in his system while driving.
Father-of-four McMahon had no previous convictions for drugs possession or supply. He brought the drugs into Full Sutton Prison because his son was suffering pain from an injury.
The painkillers had previously been prescribed for himself to treat chronic pain but he had not used them. “He knows he has made a significant error in judgement, to say the least,” said Mr Torbett.
“He is immensely remorseful for his actions. He understands that he has made a significant error here, an error which he regrets.
“It was the simple passing of pain management drugs to his son. He is under no illusions about the seriousness of it.
“He has largely remained out of trouble for 34 years apart from that driving conviction in 2023.” McMahon was still banned from visiting his son at the prison and this had caused emotional problems for him.
Recorder Taryn Turner told McMahon: “This is serious offending. This was in a custodial environment where there has to be the maintenance of order. “Drugs = currency, in monetary terms perhaps not, but nevertheless. You brought in a quantity of tablets, concealed from view.
“These tablets, you well knew, were prohibited items. The risk created is substantial. You were visiting your son, who is serving a sentence for murder.
“This was a serious lapse in your judgement.” Drugs in prisons fuelled violence, intimidation and debt, said Recorder Turner.
McMahon, of Dunchurch Road, Knotty Ash, Liverpool, was given a six-month suspended prison sentence, 120 hours’ unpaid work and 15 days’ rehabilitation.
The prosecution and defence confirmed that McMahon’s son is Joseph Peers, of Liverpool, who was convicted of murdering a 28-year-old female environmental health worker in August 2022. Peers, then aged 29, was said to have been the getaway driver for a gunman, who shot the woman in her Liverpool home with a sub-machine gun.
The gunman fired 10 bullets. One of them hit the woman in the abdomen. Peers, described as a “foot soldier” in the murder, waited outside in a car.
He and three other men were convicted at Liverpool Crown Court in November 2023 after a seven-week trial. Peers was jailed for life, with a minimum of 41 years.
He and the others were also convicted of conspiracy to murder the woman’s boyfriend and conspiracy to possess a prohibited weapon, a sub-machine gun and ammunition, with intent to endanger life. During his trial, Peers claimed that he was at home with his parents at the time.
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