Overview
- A phone thrown from a cell at HMP Long Lartin was recovered during an October 25, 2022 search and led police to thousands of deleted and stored messages that exposed the relationship.
- On Friday, former custody officer Jade Morris was jailed for 12 months for misconduct in public office and encouraging a prisoner to use a prohibited device, while inmate Jerome Nunes was earlier convicted for possessing and using an unauthorised phone and given nine months.
- Investigators recovered more than 5,000 WhatsApp and Snapchat exchanges, deleted material and a letter, and prosecutors said the volume and content made it implicit that explicit images were shared.
- Both defendants pleaded guilty: Morris admitted communicating with the prisoner after initially denying the claims and refusing to hand over her phone PIN, and Nunes pleaded guilty at magistrates’ court to offences under the Prison Act 1952.
- The Crown Prosecution Service framed the case as a deliberate breach of trust at a Category A prison, and defence lawyers argued personal hardship and efforts at rehabilitation as mitigation, creating a tension between punishment and individual circumstances.