The number of women prison officers fired for having ‘inappropriate’ relationships with male inmates has trebled in recent years.
Statistics indicate that 40 female prison officers have been terminated in the last four years due to engaging in inappropriate relationships with inmates.
Over the same period there was just one case where a male officer was fired for having an affair with a woman inmate.
The Ministry of Justice also revealed to the Mirror there were a handful of cases where an officer was fired after illicit same sex relationships.
This has prompted concerns over whether female officers in male prisons – and vice versa – can be trusted.
Overall there were 180 separate investigations into guards having inappropriate relationships with prisoners or recently released inmates.
It comes days after Katie Evans, 26, was locked up after admitting to an ‘intimate’ relationship with inmate Daniel Brownley at HMP Doncaster.
The mother-of-one, from Hatfield, South Yorkshire, boasted to an ex-prison officer that she had performed a sex act on the con.
Katie Evans, 26, was locked up after admitting to an ‘intimate’ relationship with inmate Daniel Brownley at HMP Doncaster
The mother-of-one, from Hatfield, South Yorkshire, boasted to an ex-prison officer that she had performed a sex act on the con
One specific case is that of Linda De Sousa Abreu, who celebrated her 31st birthday in December and was sentenced to 15 months in prison for confessing to misconduct. This confession followed the circulation of a scandalous video in a cell at Wandsworth Prison that went viral on social media.
Investigations uncovered that she had frequent communication with an inmate named Brownley, with records indicating 140 phone calls on a smuggled SIM card specifically for the category B jail, some of which lasted up to an hour.
During their phone conversations, Evans called herself ‘your queen’ while talking to Brownlee, who was serving five-a-half-years for burglary, attempted robbery and handling stolen goods.
In the past year, imprisoned gangsters have claimed they paid female prison officers up to £2,000 for sex in their prison cells.
Other women officers have claimed that these crimes lead to inmates making ‘sexual approaches as they believe that they are ‘fair game’.
Out of the 180 investigations the MoJ said 73 cases saw disciplinary action, with the vast majority of the guards being fired.
The number of women officer fired, 40 in the last four years, means the annual average is ten cases every year.
This is a jump from the from the 2017 to 2019 period where the annual average was just three per year.
On the back of these statistics, Kevin Moore, retired Detective Chief Superintendent, and former Head of CID at Sussex Police, questioned why female officers are based in male prisons.
Prison guard Rachel Stanton (pictured) admitted to wilful misconduct in public office after she entered a relationship with an armed robber
Toni Cole (pictured) was sentenced to one year in prison after pleading guilty to misconduct in a public office
He said: ‘To my mind, most of these illicit relationships could be prevented straight away if we only had male officers in male prisons and female officers in female prisons.
‘Whilst this does not deal with same sex relationships, my understanding is that such events account for only a small number of such matters.’
In January this year, former HMP Wandsworth prison officer Linda De Sousa Abreu was sentenced to a 15 month custodial sentence after a film of her having sex with an inmate was shared online and went viral.
The footage showed a prison officer in uniform having sex with inmate Linton Weirich, 36, as her discarded radio constantly crackles with messages from colleagues.
De Sousa Abreu admitted to having sex with the same prisoner on another occasion, while she was also caught on her own body camera giving oral sex to him on the same day the original sex tape was filmed.
The explicit clip begins with her dressed in full uniform and performing a sex act on Weirich, who has a pregnant girlfriend, at the Category A jail.
It then shows her having sex with the serial thief while his cellmate films on a mobile phone. Footage of the cell shows a TV and piles of clothes heaped over a bunk bed.
The friend who is smoking while recording says: ‘Guys we’ve made history, this is what I’m telling you.’
De Sousa Abreu (pictured) had sex with an inmate on video in HMP Wandsworth
The x-rated clip shows De Sousa Abreu dressed in full uniform and performing a sex act on Weirich, who has a pregnant girlfriend, at the Category A jail
More recently, another officer Toni Cole, 29, was recently jailed for a year after being convicted of sharing 4,369 intimate messages with a con at Northamptonshire’s new ‘super-prison’ HMP Five Wells.
Appearing before Northampton Crown Court, Cole was also found to have partaken in 18 video calls with the inmate whilst engaging in ‘contact which was sexualised or flirtatious’.
Last October Cheryl Hinde, 44, who worked at HMP Kirkham was jailed for four months after she had a relationship with an inmate, which saw them spend hours on the phone together as they regularly swapped love letters.
Prison officer Hannah Angwaba, 30, was sentenced to four years in June after smuggling drugs, tobacco and mobile phones into HMP Forest Bank using her braided hair during her romance with a convicted paedophile Anton McPherson.
Elsewhere in north Wales, Wrexham, law graduate and prison lag Jessica McClearly dodged jail after sparking a romance with an inmate, which saw the pair sleep together after his release. It ended after she became pregnant but miscarried.
Mother-of-five Rachel Stanton, 31, admitted to wilful misconduct in public office after she entered a relationship with Edwin Poole while he was serving a 10-and-a-half-year sentence in HMP Five Wells, Wellingborough, Northamptonshire.
Her romance with Poole was uncovered when prison staff found three intimate photographs and a sexy love letter in the inmate’s cell.
