Killer driver tried to smuggle a mobile phone hidden in his backside into Edinburgh prison

A driver who killed a schoolgirl in a horrific crash confessed to staff at Edinburgh’s Saughton Prison that he had stashed a contraband mobile phone in his back passage.

HMP Saughton

Martin McGuire blurted out the bizarre administration when he was jailed for killing 12-year-old Abbie McLaren.

The 40-year-old had been on bail before he was sentenced and is believed to have had it concealed in him when he went to the High Court in Edinburgh to learn his fate.

Prison sources say he was also caught with cannabis in his cell in HMP Saughton just two days into his five-year jail sentence.

One said: “He only confessed to the mobile up his bum because he knew staff would find it after he had been sent down following his appearance in court.

"McGuire told staff on reception and the phone was handed over. And 48 hours later he was caught with some hash. He’s not really the brightest.”

McGuire was behind the wheel in a motor which hit Abbie as she stepped off a bus in Motherwell in in February 2019.

The impact threw her into a parked car and she later died in hospital.

Dad-of-seven McGuire was doing 51mph in a 30 zone at the time of the tragedy and he was jailed in June after he admitted causing death by dangerous driving.

Last week he was sentenced to four months on top of his prison term for killing Abbie after he pled guilty to the phone and drug charges during an appearance at Edinburgh Sheriff Court.