*A “naïve” prison officer at HMP Berwyn has been handed a nine-month suspended sentence after she admitted accessing sensitive information on a prison computer on behalf of a prisoner.
Mold Crown Court heard how the 26-year-old woman was employed as an officer in May 2023. In November the following year, information came to light suggesting she had been “forming inappropriate relationships”. The court heard that during calls with one man, who had left Berwyn and was being held at another prison, they discussed staff shift patterns and other prisoners at Berwyn.
The officer spoke to the prisoner on the telephone under a false name. She checked the prison database more than 100 times in respect of the prisoner and an associate of his, when she had no valid reason to do so.
The prosecution accepted that the woman had pleaded on the basis she was not in a romantic relationship with the prisoner, nor that cash paid into her bank account had come from either the prisoner or his associate. She pleaded guilty to unauthorised access of the computer system.
The woman’s counsel said: “She knows how stupid she has been. She is not just sorry but deeply ashamed.” It was heard the Master’s degree-educated woman had a stable relationship, a new job and was returning to university to continue further studies.
The presiding judge, Recorder John Philpotts, told her: “Corruption undermines the whole fabric of the work prisons do and other people must be deterred from behaving in the way you did.” In addition to her suspended sentence she was ordered to complete 10 days of rehabilitation, do 200 hours of community service, and pay £1,000 towards prosecution costs.
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