Prison worker triggered lockdown after taking inmate outside to pick tomatoes

A kitchen worker at a women’s prison sparked a major security alert after taking an inmate with him to pick tomatoes at the men’s jail next door.

Security guards ‘didn’t bat an eyelid’ when the pair strolled out of the gates at HMP Downview in Surrey, a source said.

Prison officers arriving for their shifts were stunned to see the inmate had been mistakenly let out and she was rushed back inside and placed into segregation before being moved to another jail.

Downview went into a full lockdown over the breach and the governors were summoned, with two members of staff later suspended.

Vanessa Frake-Harris MBE, former Head of Security at Wormwood Scrubs, told the Daily Mail the security lapse was ‘unbelievable’.

She said the incident ‘is a sad reflection on our beleaguered prison service’, adding: ‘A closed prison is exactly that – a highly secure facility for prisoners considered too high-risk of escaping or harming others to be in an open prison setting.

‘Thankfully on this occasion the prisoner did not escape.’

The kitchen worker would have carried a set of keys, which he would have been required to hand in at the inner gatehouse before passing through checks at the final gatehouse, the Mail reports.

The inmate would have stood alongside him, reportedly in full view of the guards, before they were both allowed to leave through the prison gates.

A Prison Service spokesman said: ‘We are taking extremely seriously a brief security breach at HMP Downview which lasted less than 10 minutes.

‘In line with our processes, two members of staff have been suspended pending an investigation.

‘Swift action was taken by other staff to correct the breach and ensure it never happens again.’

HMP Downview is one of 12 female prisons in England and Wales and houses the only wing for high-risk transgender inmates.

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