Drug dealer Steven Ngolo guilty of setting up attack from cell

A drug dealer has been found guilty of encouraging a fatal revenge attack from a phone in his prison cell.

Steven Ngolo was serving a sentence for cannabis dealing at Thameside Prison when Olamide Fasina, 25, was attacked in October 2014, the Old Bailey heard.

Ngolo exploited a "flaw" in the jail's system to communicate with gang members on a phone meant for family calls.

He was found guilty of conspiracy to cause actual bodily harm. Two other men were also convicted.

Louis Henry, 22, of Greenwich, was cleared of murder but convicted of manslaughter, as well as conspiracy to cause actual bodily harm.

Alvin Ansah-Baaphy, 23, of Old Dover Road, south-east London, was also found guilty of conspiracy to cause actual bodily harm.

Prison 'quite hopeless'

Mr Fasina, who was also known as Trigger, was stabbed in his chest, stomach and arm during the attack in a street in Thamesmead on 14 October 2014. The attack was in retribution for a robbery on a low level drugs runner.

The prosecution said the Serco-run category B prison was "really quite hopeless" as staff did not check whether one of Ngolo's co-defendants was his cousin or brother as he had falsely claimed.

Ngolo, from south-east London, also dodged prison rules by using his sister to patch him through to a friend in a conference call, the court heard.

The three men will be sentenced at a later date.

'Buying drugs'

The jury heard phone conversations recorded by the prison in which Ngolo encouraged an attack on Mr Fasina.

Prosecutor Mark Fenhalls QC had said: "It was not one of those situations where he had a phone smuggled in.

"It was one of these prisons where there is one in each of the cells."

Mr Fenhalls added that police had found a "significant flaw in the system".

While giving evidence it was put to Ngolo that the prison had not checked very hard whether he was related to Ansah-Baaphy, to which Ngolo replied: "You should tell them".

Ngolo claimed in court the prison made "lots of money" from the phone scheme as prisoners used their own money to make calls.

He also told the jury he was able to buy drugs inside, saying: "Thameside is a brand new jail. Lots of people had weed in there and a drug like weed - spice."

A fourth defendant Bliss Duodo, 22, from Greenwich, was cleared of all charges.