A prison officer has been imprisoned for 5 years and 3 months having admitted offences including misconduct in a public office and conspiracy to convey list A articles into a prison.
In “Operation Novice” - a case prosecuted by Phil Barnes, instructed by the CPS North West Complex Casework Unit - Abigail Laidlaw, a 28-year-old prison custody officer at HMP Manchester, pleaded guilty to having conducted inappropriate intimate relationships with two prisoners, communicating with them using illegally-held mobile telephones and concealing cocaine and cannabis about her person in order to smuggle the drugs into the prison to hand over to the prisoners for onward supply inside the jail. She received cash payments and gifts in return for her corrupt acts, which took place over a period of more than a year.
One of the prisoners to whom she was supplying drugs – Troy Beckford – had received a life sentence for murder in 2016. Beckford pleaded guilty to conspiracy to convey list A articles into prison, and received a sentence of 6 years, meaning at least 3 years will have to be served consecutively to his 31-year tariff for the murder.