A prison officer who had an inappropriate relationship with an inmate and played a part in a conspiracy to smuggle cannabis vapes into jail has been jailed. <\/p>\n
Megann Gibson, 26, triggered more than 100 reports of concern from colleagues over five months while working at HMP Wealstun, near Wetherby, in 2023, Leeds Crown Court heard.<\/p>\n
A previous hearing was told she had engaged in “sexual communications” with a member of an organised crime group and exchanged 900 WhatsApp messages with his mother.<\/p>\n
Gibson, of Stornaway Square, Hull, admitted misconduct in public office and possession of cannabis and was jailed for 12 months.<\/p>\n
In total102 reports about Gibson were received, with many about the defendant spending too much time with prisoners, going into their cells and colleagues unable to find her while on-shift, the court heard. <\/p>\n
Gibson denied taking anything into the Category C prison for the prisoner, despite his letters thanking her for the vapes she had given him.<\/p>\n
He also wrote he had “enjoyed their kisses”, despite Gibson denying any sexual activity.<\/p>\n
After her arrest, \u00a31,000 was found inside her home “capable of supporting the assertion that she was being paid”, the court heard. <\/p>\n
Gibson told police officers she had withdrawn the money to pay for a tattoo, but no evidence supporting this claim was found.<\/p>\n
Officers also found messages between Gibson and other members of the organised crime group, the case heard, suggesting they had met at a pub in Leeds.<\/p>\n
There was also evidence that Gibson had travelled to Sheffield to meet the prisoner’s mother, who had acted as a “go-between”.<\/p>\n
The court heard the offending took place between 24 April and 18 May 2023, with Gibson also seen in her uniform in her car smoking cannabis.<\/p>\n
A Prison Service spokesperson said: “The overwhelming majority of Prison Service staff are hardworking and honest, but as this case shows, we will always take robust action when officers fall below our high standards.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A prison officer who had an inappropriate relationship with an inmate and played a part in a conspiracy…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":218791,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[9,10,13,14,6,11,12,15,16,5,7,8,65,66,67],"class_list":{"0":"post-218790","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-featured-news","11":"tag-featurednews","12":"tag-headlines","13":"tag-latest-news","14":"tag-latestnews","15":"tag-main-news","16":"tag-mainnews","17":"tag-news","18":"tag-top-stories","19":"tag-topstories","20":"tag-world","21":"tag-world-news","22":"tag-worldnews"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115673542522929401","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218790","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=218790"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218790\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/218791"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=218790"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=218790"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=218790"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}