Scissor Sister ‘in locked cell with flustered male worker’
AN investigation is under way after a male prison worker was found ‘looking flustered’ inside the locked jail cell of ‘Scissor Sister’ Charlotte Mulhall.
The incident unfolded on Sunday evening when the killer refused to open her cell at the Dóchas Centre in the Mountjoy complex.
Each prisoner has their own cell key but after almost five minutes of their knocks and requests being ignored, staff eventually used a master key to get inside.
When prison officers eventually gained entry to her room, the killer was ‘sitting on her bed’ while a male prison staff member was standing beside the bed, reportedly looking flustered.
The Irish Daily Mail understands that prison staff ‘had suspicions’ about the pair.
The staff member is currently in the process of being suspended while an investigation into the incident is under way.
Mountjoy governor Brian Murphy has launched an internal investigation into the matter, which is being taken ‘extremely seriously’. A prison source said it had been noted when both Mulhall and the prison worker had disappeared. Several staff went in search of them when it was realised they might be in her cell.
Each cell contains a bedroom and en suite, with prisoners in the medium-security prison given their own key to their own cells.
‘Staff knocked and knocked on the door for a few minutes but she refused to open it. Eventually, staff forced the door, using a master key,’ the source said.
It is understood that Charlotte – who is serving life for butchering her mother’s partner Farah Swaleh Noor to death – is co-operating fully with prison staff after being quizzed on Monday about the incident.
A preliminary discussion has taken place with the male staff member and he is due to be spoken to in further detail about what he was doing in the killer’s locked cell, and why he did not assist in opening the door when staff appealed for access to the room. A source added: ‘Charlotte herself is not in any trouble. She has not done anything wrong. The man, on the other hand, could be in a much deeper water... It could be career-ending for this person.’ An Irish Prison Service spokesman declined to comment when contacted about the incident. Charlotte was jailed with her sister, Linda, in 2006 for the gruesome killing of their mother’s partner, 38-year-old Kenyan man Farah Swaleh Noor. After stabbing him as many as 20 times they butchered his body and dumped it in the Royal Canal. His head has never been found. There are over 100 women housed at the Dóchas Centre, which has capacity for 105 inmates. Women jailed at the Dublin prison enjoy a ‘relaxed regime’. This is not the first time Charlotte has been involved in controversy since her imprisonment for murder. Two years ago, Charlotte was said to be in ‘mourning’ following the death of her fiancée.
Karen Kelly, then 25, was found lying unresponsive in her home in Farren Park, Waterford, by her father in October 2015. Her death was drugs-related.
Kelly met mother-of-one Charlotte when she was serving a three-year sentence for assault at the Dóchas Centre in 2009.
She was released from prison in 2012 and gave an interview where she spoke of her love for Charlotte. ‘I love Charlotte with all my heart. It is destroying me from the inside out not being able to see her,’ she said. ‘I sent her a wedding ring a few weeks ago in the post as I’m not allowed to visit her still.’
Nine years ago, Charlotte was also disciplined after photos emerged of her posing up jokingly holding a knife to the throat of a male inmate in the jail’s kitchen.
Meanwhile, love also blossomed behind bars for Charlotte’s sister Linda who struck up a relationship with a former prison officer who was working in the Dóchas.
Due out in weeks, it was reported in a Sunday newspaper that Linda plans to move in with the former prison officer.
Staff ‘had suspicions’ Love blossomed for Linda in jail too