A prison guard spent 380 hours on the phone with a prisoner during a six-month affair.
Katie Loxton, 27, was a prison guard at HMP Oakwood in Staffordshire when she first met 32-year-old Adam Higgs.
Higgs made a total of 3,451 calls to Loxton and spoke to her for more than 380 hours, costing him £798 between 7 July 2021 and 13 January 2022.
Loxton, of Sandwell, West Mids, has now been sentenced to 12 months in prison for misconduct in public office.
Couple bypassed security
Wolverhampton Crown Court heard she would spend much of her time in the block where Higgs was being housed, raising the suspicions of a number of officers.
Further investigation then revealed that the couple had bypassed the prison's security system and communicated through a fake contact on Higgs' phone in his cell.
He managed to hide a mobile phone he used to communicate with Loxton on social media, and the couple often “enacted sexual acts with one another” through the device, the court was told.
On January 27 last year, officers arrested Loxton and searched her home, finding three handwritten letters from Higgs inside.
Higgs, of Grantham, Lincoln, was questioned about the findings in prison in March 2022 and the two later admitted their crimes in court.
In addition to misconduct in public office, Loxton also admitted to transmitting or causing to be transmitted electronically a picture/sound from a prison.
Higgs was sentenced to eight months in prison for possessing a device in a prison that could transmit or receive images, sounds or information through electronic communications.
He also admitted that he had unauthorizedly transmitted or arranged for transmission of an image/sound electronically within a prison.
Dc Adam McHugh of Staffordshire Police said: “Loxton and Higgs were able to tamper with the security measures of the prison's phone system to hide their relationship from officers and inmates.
“We strive to uphold values and meet public expectations of public officials.
“I am pleased that Loxton has recognized that their behavior has fallen short of expectations.”
Affairs of Prison Officials
This is the youngest case by number of Prison officials have been caught having affairs In the past three years, 36 guards have been fired for connections, reaching a record high.
According to the Department of Justice (MoJ) data released under freedom of information laws, a total of 31 female prison officers and five male wardens have been fired for misconduct since 2019 – nearly double the 19 female staff fired in the previous four years.
They included a prison guard who gave birth to an inmate's baby, another who had her lover's mobile number tattooed on her inner thigh and the governor of Onley Prison in Northamptonshire, who is being jailed for intimate communication with an inmate was.
It follows concerns expressed by inspectors and unions that high staff turnover has led to high staff turnover more and more young professionals are used in the front line.
In the last five years, the number of women prison staff has increased by 27 percent to 15,000 and now accounts for 42 percent of the total staff.
In 2019, prison warden Ayshea Gunn, 27, a criminology and psychology graduate, was sentenced to 12 months in prison after falling in love have a sexual relationship with a “dangerous” 29-year-old inmate, Khuram Razaq.
The couple called each other more than 1,000 times while he was at HMP Berwyn in Wrexham, where he was serving a 12-year sentence for conspiracy to rob. They used mobile phones to stream lewd live footage of themselves.
Since the North Wales prison opened six years ago, taking a more liberal approach and renaming cells rooms, 18 women – including full-time and contract staff – have been fired or resigned Their affairs have been exposed.
