"Criminally stupid austerity cuts" have damaged the prison estate so badly manipulative prisoners are free to charm inexperienced female wardens, a criminal justice expert has warned.
Whistle-blowers have painted an alarming picture of life inside Britain's prisons where standards have slipped so much that inexperienced teenage guards and "glammed up" wardens are rushed through a training process which leaves them ill-equipped to properly deal with cunning criminals.
Prison officer numbers were cut 30% between 2010 and 2013, the Howard League reports, with many experienced guards tempted to leave the profession by generous redundancy pay-outs. The prison estate lost 70,000 years of experience from 2010 to 2018, when the number of wardens with three years under their belt was almost cut in three, Labour claimed.
After Covid departures further gutted the sector, those left face a mammoth task. Professor Ian Acheson, a former prison governor, claims the tough working environment and huge loss of experience is leaving female recruits at risk of being manipulated by prisoners.
Joanne Hunter, 27, conducted the relationship while working at HMP Forest Bank, in Salford, in December 2020.
Shmylo who was cleared of a misconduct charge (PA)His warning follows several high profile sex scandals involving lags and wardens including one guard who had intercourse with an inmate in a store cupboard and the case of Ruth Shmylo, who was cleared of misconduct in public officer charges after having phone sex with a drug dealer out of fear of "repercussions" to her and her family, the BBC reported.
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Professor Acheson argued the scale of the problem could be far worse than the public realises as many offending officers are quietly disciplined for their romances, stopping their cases getting to court.
"I'm told by prison insiders that for every officer detected, many more are quietly required to resign without sanction. That will skew the already alarming figures," he told Mail Online.
He warned that "teenagers in uniform, inadequately screened and poorly trained" were an increasingly large part of the workforce which has been hammered by years of Tory cuts.
"Emergency recruitment has thrown barely trained youngsters into the maw of disordered and violent prisons across the country. This sets the scene for exploitation and corruption by experienced offenders," he added, directly linking "criminally stupid austerity cuts" to "rising number of female officers who enter sexual relationships with prisoners."
Craig Wylde, 41, a former guard at high security HMP Durham prison, suggested standards among wardens were slipping. He claimed he had seen some young female recruits turn up to work in full makeup wearing false eyelashes and bangle earrings.
Although they are made to remove the eyelashes and earrings, they are sent on their rounds looking glammed up, Mr Wylde said.
In recent years known cases of inappropriate relationships between female wardens and inmates include phone sex, sex in cells, sending lewd pictures over message and smuggling goods for their locked-up beaus.
One officer had sex with a prisoner in his cell at Maidstone Prison and went on to have his baby. She received a suspended jail term in 2022.
John McGee had sex with guard Emily Watson in prison, a court found
Emily Watson was jailed for 12 monthsMinistry of Justice data published last year showed a marked rise in prison officers caught having affairs with inmates. They hit a record high, with 36 warders sacked for them since 2019, the Telegraph reported. At HMP Berwyn in north Wales, 18 female staff were found to have had relationships with inmates since the prison opened in 2017.
Ayshea Louise Gunn, 27, was jailed after her four-month fling with inmate Khuram Razaq was discovered at the prison. The pair exchanged inappropriate videos and pictures, some of which were streamed over the internet. At the same prison guard Emily Watson became infatuated with John McGee, who was serving eight years for death by dangerous driving.
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She gave an inmate oral sex in his cell and had full intercourse with him on one occasion, leading her to be jailed for 12 months, the Daily Post reported.
Joanne Hunter was locked up having kissed and sent explicit pictures of herself to the prisoner who she "thought was in love with her" at Forest Bank prison in Salford, also smuggling cannabis into the jail for the lag.
Some 31 female prison officers and five male warders were dismissed for misconduct in this period. The figures do not cover the 14 private prisons run by companies such as G4S, Serco and Sodexo.
The numbers coincide with a rise in the percentage of the workforce that is female, to 42.1% as of last September. That follows a 28% increase in five years. The latest totals showed 16,199 females were employed, compared to 22,309 male.
Mass departures during Covid coupled with some interviews held on Zoom and cutting of the training period from 12 to eight weeks has led to a lowering of standards, some prison experts claim.
Vanessa Frake, former prison governor at Wormwood Scrubs and author of The Governor: My Life Inside Britain’s Most Notorious Prisons, said a properly trained prison officer was very unlikely to be manipulated into having a relationship with a lag.
“Prisoners are very good at watching for vulnerabilities. They will start with the chat and see how far they can push it. If they’re told to bug off and keep it clean, then it’s end of [story]. But it’s when they’re not [that inappropriate relationships can happen], and it can start very subtly," she told the Telegraph.
She added: "It appears men are targeting women and looking for that vulnerability. These are predatory men, they’ve been predatory outside so there’s nothing stopping them being predatory inside.
"They might believe it’s an authentic romantic relationship because the manipulation by the prisoner makes you feel it’s genuine and true, whereas it’s just a form of corruption.”
A spokesperson for the Prison Service told the Mirror: "“The overwhelming majority of Prison Service staff are hardworking and honest and their professionalism and expertise should not be called into question because of the illegal actions of the small number who aren’t.
“We are doing more than ever to catch the minority who break the rules including bolstering our Counter-Corruption Unit with 140 new staff and strengthening our vetting processes to root out misconduct.”
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