Britain’s most notorious criminals will gorge on a Christmas dinner likely larger than that enjoyed by some pensioners this year, it has been suggested. Some inmates may reportedly then round off their feast with cell-brewed moonshine and deadly drugs smuggled in via Christmas car.
Thousands of pensioners struggling with rising costs are turning to food banks for their Christmas dinner, with many British shops launching free meal schemes, and The Trussell Trust delivering 179,000 food parcels to pension-age households last year. Meanwhile, prisoners will enjoy a full English breakfast on Christmas and Boxing Day as well as a roast dinner lunch with dessert, followed by a picky-bits supper. Some prison officers even put on competitions and quizzes where inmates can win telephone tokens, chocolates and coffee.
Former senior prison officer Jo Taylor told The Sun: “Some people, who work hard all year, can’t afford a proper Christmas dinner and pensioners have to live in freezing cold houses, while prisoners get everything.”
Ex-drug lord Stuart Reid told the newspaper that many inmates are eager to be “getting off their heads” with cell-brewed cocktails and smuggled drugs.
“There’s no Christmas crackers, staff dressed up as Santa Claus or Elf on the Shelf but what there is a lot of is hooch and drugs,” he said.
Criminals getting their hands on alcohol is one of the guards’ biggest fears in prison, Mr Reid added.
If 10 or 20 become intoxicated, serious violence can break out, he said.
One such riot broke out in HMP Humber on Christmas day 2018, when inmates ripped pipe-fittings off walls and charged the guards’ offices with a fridge, causing over £300,000 worth of damage.
Inmates brew moonshine, or hooch, with stockpiled fruit, juice cartons, sugar, yeast from scraps of bread and water. Raids of Hooch distillery equipment rose by 2% to 671 incidents between March 2024 and March 2025, and Hooch was discovered 8,450 times.
Christmas is also a popular time for prisoners to smuggle drugs behind bars – 35 prisoners at Scotland’s HMP Glenochil were found high last Christmas after a criminal gang used drones to deliver the substances.
Many prisons have also had to ban Christmas cards after discovering Spice, a synthetic cannabis that can paralyze users, disguised as glitter.
