There was a moment in the summer of 2022 when 26-year-old Cherrie-Ann Austin-Saddington, a female prison officer in a men’s jail, had to make a choice. She was on her wing at HMP The Verne in Dorset, in the day room where inmates go to read books and newspapers, when a prisoner called Bradley Trengrove handed her a magazine. Concealed within its pages was a slip of paper with a number written on it – the number of his secret, illicit mobile phone. Under the watchful eye of the prison’s security cameras, Austin-Saddington had to decide what to do next.
I was thinking, do I report it? Do I not report it?” she says. “I wasn’t thinking, I’ll text him – that wasn’t in my head.” But she did not throw the piece of paper away. She kept it, and in the end decided not to report anything.
It was the first in a series of catastrophic choices that would lead Austin-Saddington to a sexual relationship with Trengrove, and transform her from a prison officer into a convicted criminal, in line for a custodial sentence of her own. It’s a decision she says she will regret for the rest of her life. The story of how she came to make it reveals much about Austin-Saddington. But it tells us even more about the state of our prison system, the worrying flaws in how staff are recruited and managed, and how failures in its duty of care to prisoners and staff are undermining the course of justice.
Austin-Saddington is one of dozens of prison officers in recent years to enter into sexual relationships with the inmates they were supposed to be guarding. In response to a freedom of information request, the Ministry of Justice told me 64 prison staff have been recommended for dismissal because of inappropriate relationships with prisoners between 31 March 2019 and 1 April 2024. This is likely to be a fraction of the true number. It does not include those who resigned before they could be sacked, those who were not members of staff (such as employees of the NHS and other organisations who work in prisons) and, of course, those who were never caught. This phenomenon goes far beyond the bad judgment of a few individuals – it shows there is a systemic problem within the Prison Service.
Overwhelmingly, it’s female former prison officers who have had relationships with male prisoners who are facing criminal charges. In May, Austin-Saddington became one of at least 10 women in the past year alone to be convicted of misconduct in public office for this reason. Linda de Sousa Abreu was sentenced to 15 months in prison in January, after a clip of her having sex with an inmate at HMP Wandsworth went viral. Morgan Farr Varney was sentenced to 10 months in May after she was captured on CCTV going into a cupboard with a prisoner at HMP Lindholme. Toni Cole and Aimee Duke worked at HMP Five Wells in Northamptonshire at the same time; they were both sentenced to 12 months earlier this year following their relationships with two different prisoners. Katie Evans was barely 21 when she began her affair with an inmate; she received a 21-month sentence in March. Kerri Pegg, former governor of HMP Kirkham, was sentenced to nine years in May following her relationship with a notorious drug trafficker.
In this crowded field, Austin-Saddington’s story stands out. She knew Trengrove was a convicted sex offender when she embarked on her affair with him. She was arrested in May 2023 after she was caught trying to smuggle a Calpol syringe to him, which he wanted her to use to inseminate herself with his sperm. And in February 2024 – nine months after their relationship ended and more than a year before her case came to court – she suffered a spinal stroke that left her paralysed from the chest down. That was the reason why the judge chose to suspend her two-year sentence.
I know I didn’t get prison time, but I am locked inside my body for the rest of my life,” Austin-Saddington, now 29, tells me from her wheelchair at her home in Weymouth.
Misconduct in public office is a serious offence – one to which Austin-Saddington pleaded guilty. She is a convicted criminal, and the story she tells me over the three hours I spend with her should be understood in that context. But it is about much more than sex. It reveals how some of the most dangerous men in the country are able to get what they want, even behind bars, by gaining control over the staff who hold the keys to their cells.
“Working in the job, you hear all these stories about people having relationships with prisoners. You think, that’s awful. God, how can they do that? I never thought I’d be that person. And I was.” Her eyes brim with tears. “I feel like a massive fuck-up. I can’t hide away from it – it happened. How did I let that happen to me?”
Prisons had always intrigued Austin-Saddington. She knew someone who was in and out of jail while she was growing up. She was too young to visit him, but he would write to her, describing the harsh treatment he received at the hands of prison staff. “I was curious to see what it was like inside,” she says.
