Prison Officer Sent to Jail After Sh0cking Relationship With Mu-r-derer Is Revealed Through Phone Contacts
A female prison officer caught having a relationship with a convicted murderer at a maximum security prison has been jailed.
Rebecca Green, 29, was working at HMP Whitemoor when she struck up a relationship with inmate John Otugade in October 2022.
Otugade, 33, is serving a life sentence with a minimum term of 25 years for shooting dead a nightclub bouncer in 2010 after being refused entry.
Cambridge Police said suspicions were raised about Green in the spring of 2023, and Otugade was moved to HMP Belmarsh in south-east London while an investigation took place.
Officers searched Green’s car and seized her mobile phone, which unearthed messages that gave away the relationship.
Otugade also had a number added to his approved contacts list inside the prison under the name ‘partner’.
This number was later found to match a phone belonging to Green.
Green, of Holbeach, Lincolnshire, pleaded guilty to misconduct in a public office at an earlier hearing.
+2
View gallery
Prison officer Rebecca Green, 29, has been jailed for a year and four months after she was caught having a relationship with an inmate
+2
View gallery
She struck up a relationship with John Otugade, 33, who is serving a life sentence for shooting dead a London nightclub bouncer
She was sentenced at Cambridge Crown Court on June 24 to one year and four months in prison.
Detective Constable Tom Adams, who investigated, said: ‘As a prison officer, you have a responsibility to keep prisoners and your colleagues safe.
‘This was a serious breach of Green’s responsibilities, and she failed to consider the potential impact on the security and safety of the staff and prisoners and how her actions undermined the work of the prison.
‘This sentence shows how seriously the police and courts take such breaches.’
Green’s crime is an increasingly familiar story in the UK’s prison system.
The number of women prison officers fired for having ‘inappropriate’ relationships with male inmates has trebled in recent years.
Figures show that 40 female wardens have been fired in the past four years after it was found that they were having behind-bar flings with imprisoned criminals.
Over the same period, there was just one case where a male officer was fired for having an affair with a woman inmate.
The Ministry of Justice also revealed there were a handful of cases where an officer was fired after illicit same sex relationships.
Another recent offender was Kyra Dancer, 23, also charged with misconduct in a public office amid accusations she had an ‘inappropriate relationship’ with an inmate.
Ms Dancer was employed by G4S and worked at their Wellingborough facility, which has been dubbed ‘Britain’s cushiest jail’.
Dancer, of Rushden, is accused of ‘wilfully and without reasonable excuse or justification misconducting’ herself.
