Acid attacker Arthur Collins jailed for extra eight months for smuggling phone into cell to call ex Ferne McCann

ACID attack thug Arthur Collins has been jailed for a further eight months after smuggling a mobile phone into his cell to call Ferne McCann.

Collins, 25, hid the device, two sim cards and two memory sticks inside a crutch while on remand in September before his trial over the brutal dance floor crime.

In December he was jailed for 20 years for the incident at an East London nightclub which left 16 people with chemical burns and three people temporarily blinded.

He admitted hiding the phone in the crutch, which he had been using after hurting his feet trying to evade police while on the run, a week later on video link from the maximum security HMP Belmarsh in south east London.

Collins’ lawyer Audrey Mogan told Bromley Magistrates’ Court that he had used the phone not “for any sinister purpose” but to make private calls to his pregnant girlfriend Ferne McCann, who gave birth in November.

She said: “He had this phone because he and his partner had been hounded by the media.

“He knows there was a phone in the cell but he knows the calls are recorded. Because of that, he was afraid that information would get out to the media.”

Collins hurled a corrosive substance over a crowd on the dance floor at Mangle E8 nightclub in Dalston, East London, in April last year.

He told his trial at Wood Green Crown Court he did not know the bottle contained acid, believing it to contain a liquid date rape drug, which he had snatched from two men after overhearing them planning to spike a girl’s drink.

But the jury convicted him of five counts of grievous bodily harm with intent and nine counts of actual bodily harm in November.

He was sentenced today for one charge of possession of a prohibited item while in prison.

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