There’s so much bad news about our prisons that it’s easy to become fatigued by it. Another failing jail, another prison awash with drugs, another inmate released in error. As a result, often it’s only the most extreme or shocking examples which hit the headlines. But there is one particular kind of prison news story which is guaranteed coverage: a female member of staff caught having an intimate relationship with a prisoner. In many cases they’ve had sex with the prisoner inside the jail, or even in a cell.

The Wandsworth officer had sex with one prisoner inside his cell while being filmed on a contraband mobile

The most high-profile recent example is, of course, Linda De Sousa Abreu. The Wandsworth officer had sex with one prisoner inside his cell at the jail, while being filmed by a cellmate on a contraband mobile phone. But there have been many others. Merely reviewing the news over the past couple of months reveals case after case. What is going on behind bars?

In December, Megann Gibson, 26, was jailed for an inappropriate relationship with an inmate at HMP Wealstun and her part in a conspiracy to smuggle cannabis vapes in to the jail. On 16 January, Rebecca Pinckard was jailed for performing two sex acts on a prisoner, both of which were captured on her body-worn camera. On 20 January, Isabelle Dale, 23, was jailed for having intimate relationships with two inmates at HMP Coldingley, both of whom she swore ‘undying love’ to. Dale committed the offences when she was a teenager, shortly after joining the prison service. She also conspired to smuggle drugs inside HMP Swaleside after one of her lovers was moved there. At the end of January, Alicia Novas, 20, was jailed after admitting a sexual relationship with a 31-year-old prisoner at HMP Five Wells. She also brought cannabis in to the jail.

And then, last week, Charlotte Winstanley, 27, was jailed for a ‘substantial sexual relationship’ with an inmate at HMP Lindholme, the jail she worked at. Notably, it emerged during Winstanley’s trial that she had confided in a colleague, Morgan Farr Varney, who herself was jailed last year for conducting a relationship with a prisoner at the jail. Lindholme, of course, is not just known for sexual misconduct by female members of staff. Its governor, Rob Kellett, was recently dismissed from the prison service after a video circulated last summer showing him leaving the ‘GFE’ massage parlour in Sheffield.

I could go on. However often this story plays out it seems we never tire of it. This isn’t surprising, as these stories are salacious and allow the press to publish photos of the (usually young) women. These tales also touch on old archetypes, of beast and maiden, or succubus and man. But they aren’t merely entertaining. Very often such intimate relationships involve, or lead to, other kinds of corruption. Many of the women listed above smuggled one form of contraband or another for their lovers, and this is common in such cases. Such corruption has a hugely pernicious effect on jails.

Nor is this merely a case of over-reporting by the media. Such data as does exist shows that investigations into inappropriate relationships between prison staff and inmates have tripled since 2020. Similarly, while between 2017 and 2020 just nine female officers were caught having intimate relationships with prisoners, at least 45 have been caught since 2021.

These inappropriate relationships form for a number of reasons. There are women who have an unhealthy fascination with criminals, and some of those will seek out roles in the justice system. I encountered one such officer during my time at HMP Wandsworth. There can also be strange emotional dynamics on prison wings. Intense bonds can form between people who share traumatic or stressful experiences, especially when those experiences are not encountered by most people. Prison can easily create the conditions for such bonds.

These bonds can also be forced into existence. Many of the prisoners these young women form relationships with are substantially older, often with significant experience of grooming and manipulating. With many of our jails short-staffed, and with many officers being very inexperienced, it can be easy for an experienced prisoner to make himself useful, or demonstrate that he can protect the officer from ‘dangerous’ or ‘difficult’ men. I have heard of cases where an inmate will arrange for another prisoner to threaten an officer, before the ‘heroic’ prisoner intervenes to save her. And with few colleagues, and even fewer experienced ones to keep an eye out, relationships can form and become physical without discovery.

None of this should happen. An effective system of hiring and vetting would not allow women with an unhealthy interest in prisoners to join the service. Effective training would prepare those women for being groomed and corrupted. Proper staffing would ensure that inappropriate relationships were detected quickly, before they became physical. In simple terms, on properly staffed wings it should be impossible for an officer like Linda De Sousa Abreu to disappear inside a cell for sex with an inmate, because they would be instantly spotted.

So this rising wave of sex between officers and inmates shouldn’t be considered in isolation. Instead it is merely another symptom of how lawless, broken and corrupt our prisons have become.