Charlotte Winstanley, 27, admitted misconduct in a public office over the relationship with 29-year-old Jabhari Blair (Picture: Mail Online)
A prison officer told an inmate she ‘loves her job but loves him more’ during their ‘romantic and intimate’ relationship, a trial has heard.
Charlotte Winstanley, now 27, started a sexual relationship with gang member Jabhari Blair, 30, soon after she started working at the Lindholme Prison, near Doncaster, and smuggled in a range of contraband materials for him, including a mobile phone over which they sent intimate photos and videos, Sheffield Crown Court heard.
The court heard on Friday how messages uncovered between Winstanley and Blair included them saying how Mondays were their ‘date nights.’
Prosecutor Aaron Dinnes read out graphic sexual messages between the pair which he said appeared to prove that their relationship was sexual and he told a judge that prison cameras picked up intimate moments of them touching and disappearing together into rooms.
Mr Dinnes said one message from Blair indicated that he ‘can’t wait to give Miss Winstanley a beautiful baby’.
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He said a message from the prison officer to the inmate said: ‘I’m literally praying to have your babies.’
The prosecutor said: ‘They also discussed how Mondays are their date nights.’
And he read a message from Winstanley, which said: ‘Life starts now, baby. Every sacrifice I make I do so I can be with you.’
Another he read said: ‘I love my job but I love you more.’
Prison Officer Charlotte Winstanley appearing at a Doncaster Magistrates Court (Picture: Mail Online)
The prosecutor explained how Winstanley ‘acted as his link to outside’, with investigators even finding a link he provided to the Argos website, detailing items he wanted smuggling into prison.
He said Winstanley even went to see Blair’s mother at her home in Leeds.
Mr Dinnes said that, after she was suspended from duty and Blair was moved to another jail, Winstanley signed up as a visitor and undertook online meetings with him at his new prison, with the relationship lasting around three years in total.
The prosecutor said there was also evidence Winstanley passed Blair information about prisoner movements, other inmates’ health care and a search of his own cell.
He said this was extremely serious as Blair was a member of an organised crime group who was jailed for 12-and-a-half years for violence in 2014.
Mr Dinnes said Blair told Winstanley he used his prison contacts to make sure she would ‘remain protected’ and had ‘told her that somebody was ready to fight immediately, if necessary’.
The court heard how Winstanley only finished her training as a prison officer in April 2022 but had worked in the prison before this as an operational support officer.
Mr Dinnes said part of her training specifically focused on relationships and corruption.
Jabhari Blair is serving a 12-year sentence over a violent street fight
The court heard how Winstanley talked to her friend Morgan Farr Varney, who was also a new prison officer, about her new ‘boyfriend’ but Varney was herself jailed for 10 months last year after a relationship with an inmate at HMP Lindholme.
Khadim Al’Hassan, defending Winstanley, told the judge his client was only 22 when she began work at the prison and had only had one boyfriend before, when she was 15 and at school.
Mr Al’Hassan told the court that being a prison officer was a job that required maturity and life experience which his client did not have, and employing her was a ‘recipe for disaster’.
He said she was ‘deeply remorseful’ but ‘wasn’t really equipped with the skills and tools somebody would expect somebody in that position to have’.
Judge Jeremy Richardson KC told Winstanley and Blair: ‘This is arguably the worst case of its kind I have personally dealt with.
‘It must be immediate custody but I’m not sure I should rush to judgment.’
Judge Richardson said he wanted to consider the case carefully and told them pair he will sentence them on Monday.
Winstanley cried in the dock as the judge said to her: ‘For a prison officer, young or old, to have conducted a sexual affair with a prisoner is bad enough.
‘For it to be over a prolonged period of time worsens the matter.
‘And, then, to be a party to smuggling in various items and to brazen it out when prison officials raise issues and give you an opportunity to confess – and it gets worse.’
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He told Blair he had ‘corrupted a prison officer’ and this was ‘about as bad as it gets’.
The judge remanded both defendants in custody.
Winstanley, of Doncaster, has admitted misconduct in public office and transmitting a photograph from inside a prison.
Blair, who is a serving prisoner but formerly from Leeds, has admitted possessing cannabis and prohibited items, namely a phone and a USB stick.
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