A PRISONER at HMP Bullingdon has had his stay extended after he was caught using a mobile phone from inside his cell.

Edward Osafo told officers he had only smuggled the phone to keep fighting his appeal against a deportation order, which will send him back to his native Ghana once his 32 month sentence is over.

The 20-year old was in jail after previously being sentenced for selling drugs in Colchester.

He admitted the fresh charge of possessing a prohibited item while in prison and was sentenced at Oxford Crown Court on Tuesday.

Prison staff at HMP Bullingdon, near Bicester, went to Osafo’s jail cell on June 3 after a ‘strong smell of cannabis’ was detected, the court heard.

When they went inside they saw Osafo hiding something behind his right arm, which later turned out to be the prohibited gold Zanco phone – known for its miniature size.

He quickly admitted the offence before pleading guilty at Oxford Magistrates’ Court on August 3.

He said that he had only obtained the phone at a cost of £150 because he had been fighting a deportation order and that the current system of phone calls in the prison was 'not enough.'

In mitigation, Gareth James, defending, said: “There is no link to drugs or any other illicit substances coming into this prison from this mobile phone.

“He originates from outside of the UK and when he received his sentence for 32 months he was told he would be deported.

“Since that time he has been trying to appeal this decision and he simply couldn’t keep up with the number of calls he had to make to pursue that appeal within the normal prison system.”

The court also heard how he had lent the phone out to other inmates, an element which Judge Zoe Smith said was an ‘aggravating feature’ in the case.

In passing sentence, she said: "Obviously having mobile phones in prison is a danger, it allows people to continue with organised crime.

"And an aggravating factor here is that you were lending it out to others and would have had no control as to what it was being used for.

"But you clearly were not concerned with drugs" she added.

For the offence of having the prohibited mobile phone he was jailed for eight months, to be served at the end of his existing sentence.