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The number of prison workers disciplined for illicit relationships with inmates has almost tripled in less than a decade – amidst a flurry of young female officers winding up in jail themselves after becoming entangled with criminals.
Figures obtained via a freedom of information request show 32 prison officers were subject to disciplinary action in 2024-25 after forming an ‘inappropriate relationship’ with a prisoner or ex-prisoner, up from 12 in 2017-18.
On average, more than seven in ten are recommended for dismissal each year, rising from seven in 2017-18 to 16 in 2023-24.
Individual figures for each prison were supplied for only a handful of sites by HM Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS), citing data protection laws. There are around 36,000 prison staff in England and Wales.
In many cases, officers facing disciplinary action are young, female staff who formed illicit relationships with prisoners, helping them to smuggle drugs into jail in order to win their affections.
Critics have suggested HMPPS is failing to properly vet and train new recruits to ensure they are not seduced by canny inmates.
Neil O’Brien, the shadow minister for policy renewal who obtained the data, told the Daily Mail: ‘The selection of staff is clearly failing to weed out people with the wrong mindset and attitudes.
‘The prison service needs an overwhelming focus on selecting people who will keep order in prisons and protect public safety, rather than any other softer goals. That goal should influence the whole process of recruitment.’
Linda De Sousa Abreu (pictured arriving at court) was jailed for 15 months after enaging in a sexual relationship with an inmate at HMP Wandsworth
Isabelle Dale was locked up after embarking on sexual relationships with two inmates, allegedly having sex with one in a prison’s prayer space
HMPPS, however, attributes the rising figures to the success of its anti-corruption taskforce in rooting out misbehaving officers.
Reports suggest the Prison Service is building training on how to avoid being seduced and manipulated by inmates into its new, expanded training programme for fresh-faced officers, called Enable.
Justice experts say prison bosses need to get better at identifying problems before they become serious.
Vanessa Frake, a former prison governor who worked in jails for 27 years, told the Daily Mail: ‘If the Prison Service is getting better at identifying inappropriate relationships, that’s a good thing.
‘But an increase in cases should still concern us. Prison officers occupy a position of enormous trust and power. They have access to vulnerable people, confidential information and the ability to bring things into a prison that prisoners shouldn’t have.
‘An inappropriate relationship isn’t just an issue of someone’s private life – it can become a serious security issue.
‘Most prison officers are decent, hardworking people doing an incredibly difficult job. But recruitment and retention pressures do matter.
‘When you’re struggling to attract and retain experienced staff, you have to be absolutely certain that you’re maintaining the same standards of vetting, training, supervision and professional boundaries.’
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Among those rooted out is Isabelle Dale, jailed for three and a half years after embarking on sexual relationships with inmates Shahid Sharif and Connor Money. She allegedly had sex with Sharif in the prayer space at HMP Coldingley in Surrey.
Dale conspired to smuggle in envelopes soaked with the synthetic cannabinoid spice, and told Money – jailed for killing his best friend in a high-speed crash – that security wasn’t ‘too hot’ on searching his cell for an illicit mobile phone.
She quit her job at the end of 2022 following an internal investigation, and was ultimately arrested on her sixth visit to Sharif after he was transferred to HMP Swaleside on the Isle of Sheppey in Kent.
Piercing-laden Alicia Novas, 20, was jailed for three years in January after she formed a relationship with violent armed burglar Declan Winkless, smuggling him cannabis, tobacco and mobile phones and exchanging thousands of messages.
Novas was arrested after a video of her having sex with an inmate was circulated on Snapchat at HMP Five Wells. A judge noted: ‘Given your age and inexperience you were vulnerable to being manipulated.’
Perhaps the most high-profile case in recent history was that of Linda De Sousa Abreu, who was filmed having sex with an inmate in his cell at HMP Wandsworth in London in June 2024 in a video that broke containment and went viral online.
Piercing-laden Alicia Novas was jailed after a video of her having sex with an inmate was circulated in prison Snapchat circles
Katie Evans called herself ‘the queen’ as she lavished attention on a convicted robber behind bars
Katie Breen, 23, avoided jail after meeting up with a prisoner for sex when he was released on licence
Morgan Farr Varney has called for the minimum age for a prison officer to be raised from 18 to 25 – after embarking on a relationship with an inmate herself
De Sousa Abreu, who also had an account on adult content creation platform OnlyFans while working as a prison officer, was jailed for 15 months and freed after serving one third of her sentence.
There are many others: mother-of-one Katie Evans called herself ‘the queen’ as she lavished a robber with attention and performed sex acts on him; Charlotte Winstanley told a violent thug she was ‘literally praying’ to bear his child; Rebecca Green was jailed after striking up a relationship with a convicted killer.
Some, like 23-year-old Megan Breen, were luckier: she was given a 10-month jail sentence suspended for 18 months after telling an inmate she loved him and having sex with him when he was released on licence.
The similarities in each case are not hard to pick out: each officer was a young woman early in their career: Dale was 23 when she was jailed in January; Novas, 20; De Sousa Abreu, now 32, had been in the job for a few months; Evans was 26.
House of Commons Library research suggests prison corruption is rising in part because staff are younger and more inexperienced.
An official figures suggest that across prisons, probation services and youth custody, HMPPS – is increasingly staffed by young, female recruits.
In 2020-21, 55 per cent of new joiners across the entire service were female, and 50.8 per cent were under 30. Around 30 per cent of all prison officers are women.
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Charlie Taylor, HM Chief Inspector of Prisons, has noted that such inexperienced officers can be easily manipulated by savvy inmates, who will collude to bully an inexperienced officer who is then rescued by ‘some very charming’ co-conspirator.
‘By then they’ve already begun to reel that person in and begin a collusive-type relationship,’ he said. ‘And that immediately is something that sophisticated prisoners can start to try and exploit.’
Linton Weirich, the serial burglar who began a relationship with Linda De Sousa Abreu, says the makeup of prison officers has changed, with hardened ex-military veterans being replaced with young impressionable women in their early 20s.
Weirich – who has since branded his sexual trysts with De Sousa Abreu ‘the worst mistake of his life’ – told The Sun earlier this year: ‘Now they’ve got young girls and 19 and 20-year-old guys working as guards and trying to tell us what to do.’
And Morgan Farr Varney, a former prison officer who was jailed after embarking on an illicit affair with a convicted drug dealer, has called for the minimum age for prison officer recruits to be raised to 25 from 18.
Farr Varney, who would sneak off for sex sessions with drug dealer Jordan Stones at HMP Lindholme in Yorkshire, says she was ’emotionally vulnerable’ and ‘naive’ when she joined.
Charlotte Winstanley told a violent thug she was ‘literally praying’ to have his child
Linton Weirich, the serial burglar who began a relationship with Linda De Sousa Abreu, says prison officers are young impressionable women rather than the ex-military types of old
Vanessa Frake, former head of security at HMP Wormwood Scrubs, says the prison service must ensure it is tightly vetting and monitoring its staff
Ms Frake – former head of operations and security at HMP Wormwood Scrubs – says the Prison Service needs to be ‘ruthless’ on hammering the message into prison officers that professional boundaries cannot be crossed.
‘Prisoners are very good at identifying weaknesses in staff. They can manipulate, groom and exploit officers – and sometimes officers themselves cross the line,’ she said.
‘Once that happens, the officer can become the person being controlled rather than the person maintaining security.’
She added: ‘The real test isn’t whether the number of disciplinary cases goes up or down.
‘It’s whether the Prison Service is preventing these relationships from developing in the first place and removing people who compromise the safety and integrity of the prison.
‘There should be zero tolerance for staff who abuse that position of trust.’
A Ministry of Justice spokesman said: ‘Any inappropriate relationships between prisoners and members of staff are unacceptable and we don’t hesitate to take the toughest action against any staff that fall below our high standards.
‘While the majority are hardworking and professional, any found guilty of inappropriate relationships with prisoners face dismissal from the service and can be sent to prison themselves.’
