Female prison officer smuggled £35k of drugs for lover inmate

Telegraph

7 days ago

A female prison officer caught smuggling drugs worth £35,000 into a prison for her inmate lover has been jailed.
Olivia Johnson, 27, was found with paper soaked with the synthetic drug spice during a random spot check at HMP Highpoint, in Suffolk, in September 2022.
She had agreed to smuggle the drugs into the prison for gangster Javelle Taylor, who was serving a 12-year sentence for firearms offences.
On Tuesday, Johnson, from Rotherham, South Yorks, was handed a three-and-a-half year sentence after admitting the offence.
Detectives found text messages to Taylor in which she expressed her love for him and uncovered financial records showing payments worth £14,871 from his associates.
Sentencing her, Recorder Richard Christie KC said her acts 'strike at the heart of the integrity of the criminal justice system'.
'As the pre-sentence report put it, the trafficking into the prison and the subsequent use of drugs and mobile telephones in prison undermines the good order and discipline of the establishment, impacts on the health and safety of prisoners, staff and visitors,' he said.
'It undermines rehabilitation of prisoners and supports ongoing criminality, both within the prison and external to the prison. These are sentiments with which I wholeheartedly agree.
'You both took drugs into the prison and formed a relationship with the prisoner, Javelle Taylor. He was in prison for serious offences.'
Johnson had worked at HMP Highpoint for three years before being caught smuggling drugs in a random spot check when turning up for work on Sept 23 2022.
Staff discovered dozens of sheets of paper stained with spice, with a total value of £35,200.
'You tried to turn around and go to the laboratory, knowing as you must have done that you were carrying 88 sheets of paper impregnated with spice, a class-B drug,' said Judge Christie.
'The value of each sheet is said to be £400, thus a huge total of £35,200 worth of those drugs. In the pre-sentence report, the author records that although you say you committed these offences because you were in an intimate relationship with the prisoner, Javelle Taylor, that it is more likely that they were committed for financial gain.
'I take the view that it's a bit of both. Both financial gain and because you professed love for him. You say that you were a people pleaser, or you said that to the promotion officer, and that's why you didn't report the offences.'
The court was told that Johnson was in an 'emotionally dependent' relationship with Taylor, and a search of her red Toyota Aygo uncovered a black iPhone 13 in the glovebox, which revealed damning messages between them.
The texts included flirtatious and affectionate exchanges, with Johnson telling the inmate 'several times' that she loved him.
Other messages clearly referenced drug smuggling operations. In one, Johnson texted: 'I can't figure out how I will get it through but I will figure it out.'
She also wrote: 'I'll message you as soon as I'm done at work so you know it's where it needs to be.'
Jimmy Ogunshakin, defending, said Johnson was remorseful and had been too scared to speak out.
'This was a young woman aged 22, in her first job and she found herself in a sticky situation,' he said. 'Certainly she lost her way, and for that she is very, very sorry.'
The case comes as a record number of female prison guards have been fired for affairs with male inmates, with at least 30 given the sack in the past three years.