A prison officer has been spared prison after having an ‘inappropriate relationship’ with an inmate.
Megan Breen, 23, worked at two prisons in Gwent, South Wales in 2022 when she entered into a relationship with the unnamed prisoner.
She met with the criminal, a convicted drug dealer, and had sex with him at a hotel after he was allowed out on temporary release. She travelled 175 miles to meet him and even met his family during the trip to Liverpool.
At first Breen denied the illicit affair, but last month she changed her plea to guilty and admitted misconduct in a public office.
Breen worked at category C jail HMP Usk and nearby open prison HMP Prescoed when she entered into the relationship with the inmate between February and May 2022.
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Judge, Recorder of Cardiff Tracey Lloyd-Clarke said Breen had ‘buried her head in the sand’ over the possible punishment for her actions, adding: ‘You knew what you were doing was wrong and you were aware of the consequence.’
An earlier court hearing heard: ‘While acting as a public officer, namely a prison officer, wilfully and without reasonable excuse or justification, misconducted yourself in a way which amounted to an abuse of the public’s trust in the office holder by having a relationship with a prisoner.’
But the judge spared Breen a custodial prison sentence due to the ‘exceptional circumstances’ of having one young child and being pregnant with a second.
She was handed a 10-month suspended sentence as well as 15 days rehabilitation requirement and ordered to pay £500 costs.
HMP Usk houses 280 inmates, and is managed jointly with HMP Prescoed, which is located three miles away and houses offenders who are serving the final part of their sentences before being released.
Breen is the latest prison guard to face charges over inappropriate relationships with an inmate.
Earlier this year, Linda De Sousa Abreu, a prison officer at HMP Wandsworth in south London, was sentenced to 15 months in prison after she was filmed having sex with an inmate in his cell.
Toni Cole, 29, was jailed for a year after sharing a series of intimate affairs with a con while working at the new ‘super-prison’ HMP Five Wells in Northamptonshire.
And last summer, trainee officer Rachel Stanton, 31, was given a suspended jail term over an affair with armed robber Edwin Poole at the same prison.
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