Prison officer sent messages to inmate
A PRISON officer who gave an inmate his mobile phone number and home address exchanged dozens of messages with him including “inappropriate” discussions about other prisoners, a court has heard.
Father of two Stephen George, 37, a former soldier who served for 14 years in the Army, including tours of Afghanistan, before joining the prison service, worked at HMP Parc in Bridgend for G4S.
While there he started communicating with inmate Muhamet Hoxha after handing over his contact details, Cardiff Crown Court heard.
Sentencing him to six months in prison for misconduct in a public office, Judge Eleri Rees said: “There were 176 different contacts between you and this offender Mr Hoxha. It is quite clear you gave your number, you gave your address. You are not a young and naive person; you are 37 years of age, with 14 years in the Army behind you.
“In these circumstances it is difficult to see how you were so intimidated that you handed over your mobile number and then your address.”
Judge Rees added it had not been a “momentary lapse” and had included the pair having “inappropriate conversations about other offenders”.
“Quite clearly he was making inroads into a relationship with you. Where it would have ended we don’t know,” she said.
Rachel Knight, for the prosecution, said the offences were discovered after Hoxha was found to be in possession of a mobile phone on February 16.
The mobile phone was examined and analysts discovered that George had contacted Hoxha 79 times between October and February, while Hoxha contacted the defendant 97 times.
One from George said: “Listen, Miah [another inmate] grassed me up for allegedly bringing stuff into the jail. “I never trusted him.” A message sent the same day, February 14, added: “It was easy to point the finger at me because I was not there.”
Another message sent the following day said: “I have got hold of his f****** misses’ [Miah’s partner he later clarified] number so if I hear anything else she will be having a call to tell him to wise the f*** up.”
Ms Knight said the contacts took place in the evenings when “the defendant would have known he would have been locked away” in his cell, so George would have known Hoxha had a telephone but did not report it.
She said: “Mr Hoxha received a four-month term of imprisonment in June of this year dealt with by the magistrates’ court for being in possession of a prohibited article.”
The court heard George had been suspended in relation to an allegation of assault at the time of most of the contact so was not in the prison and there was no evidence he had taken anything into the prison for Hoxha.
Ms Knight told the court George “was at a loss to explain” why he had given Hoxha his details.
“He told police he knew it was an offence to communicate with a prison officer but he did it out of fear,” she said.
George, of Pant Bryn Isaf, Llanelli, admitted misconduct in a public office in that being a serving prison officer he had communicated with a serving prisoner at HMP Parc by means of a mobile telephone.
Heath Edwards, for the defence, said the idea of a custodial sentence filled his client with dread.
“For him, the consequences should have been at the forefront of his mind. That is the impact on his family.”
He said George understood his career as a prison officer was over but that the Army was willing to take him back and he was due to attend a reintroduction physical exam next month.