A prison officer accused of having a sexual relationship with an inmate was ‘threatened’ by the convicted robber, a court has heard.
Isabelle Dale, 23, is accused of an inappropriate relationship with convicted robber Shahid Shariff at HMP Coldingley in Surrey as well as plotting to smuggle drugs into the jail.
Sharif, who was three years into a twelve-year sentence, was transferred after the alleged encounter to HMP Swaleside on the Isle of Sheppey in Kent.
A court heard this week that Dale said that Sharif had forced her to have her bottom enlarged and to buy a ring as a token of her fidelity.
‘I bought the ring as I was instructed to by Mr Sharif to prove my loyalty to him,’ she explained.
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‘He threatened to stab me. He told me he hated me and wanted me to die.’
Dale was asked about the envelopes laced with spice, which Sharif got Dale to help her smuggle into his new prison, jurors previously heard.
Syam Soni, who is defending Dale, asked: ‘Did you wonder what he was doing with the envelopes?’
‘I wondered, but I wouldn’t have dared to question him,’ she replied.
She said that Sharif had confessed to sexual encounters with other prison officers in the past.
‘He disclosed to me that at HMP Coldingley he had been given oral sex by a previous prison officer,’ Dale told the jury.
‘He told me it was investigated but that there was no further action because there was no evidence.’
The prison officer said Sharif had told her to get a dildo because he believed that she was having sex with other people.
Dale recalled she had wanted to become a police officer, and said that she got a job as a prison officer so that she could gain experience.
When asked about her experience at HMP Coldingley, she said: ‘I felt that it became very apparent from the beginning that the prisoners had more respect for me than the staff did.’
She started receiving messages from Connor Money, another prisoner she is alleged to have a relationship with, and she was asked why she engaged in conversations with him when prisoners were not allowed to have mobile phones.
Dale said: ‘When he first messaged me it was never anything malicious. He was somebody I felt supported by.’
She said that she did not feel comfortable reporting the fact that Money had a mobile phone to the prison authorities.
The trial continues.
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