Jailed TV Boss In Cash For Drugs Row

A Jailed Llanelli TV producer has come under fire for allegedly giving prisoners cash to buy drugs for a television expose. Dafydd Evans, aged 42, was jailed for causing death by dangerous driving after he pulled into the path of 24-year-old motorcyclist Darren Beynon.

While behind bars at North Sea Camp open prison near Boston, Lincolnshire, he had been secretly recording a Channel 4 Dispatches film.

But police have now been called in to investigate allegations that Evans helped inmates buy heroin and gave them vodka so he could video them.

Llanelli Rural Council leader Jim Jones said, that, if the allegations were true, he was appalled.

“Evans is in there as a punishment and not there to make TV programmes”, he said.

“Darren’s family have been through enough without having their grief brought back all over again.”

Evans, aged 42, was director of development for Llanelli-based Tinopolis at the time of the crash on the A40 near Llandeilo in October 2004. Evans claimed he wandered off from the crash site while concussed and passed out in a field for 14 hours. He went to police the following day and passed a breath test.

Sources at Channel 4 have reportedly admitted that Evans was given a “modest” amount of cash to buy vodka and tobacco to expose the lax regime in the prison. They insisted, though, no money was handed over to buy drugs.

The allegations are included in a statement made for officials by a prisoner.

A spokesman for the Home Office said: “We understand the local police are currently looking into issues surrounding these alleged events.

“Part of the open conditions process is to enable risk-assessed prisoners to demonstrate they can be trusted prior to release.

“Offenders who deliberately betray that trust damage the public’s confidence in the system.”

When the film was discovered Evans was sent to higher security Ranby Prison in Retford, Nottinghamshire.

At the time the news emerged Mr Beynon’s mum, Jacqueline, criticised Channel 4 bosses for allowing the programme.

The shopworker, of Five Roads, said: “This is a disgrace. I’m appalled that Channel 4 is getting involved with this man.

“He was put behind bars as a punishment for killing my son – not as a chance to make a TV programme.”

Evans’s film will be shown on Dispatches on Channel 4 on Monday.