‘Scissor Sister’ and her tryst with Dóchas prison worker
MURDERER Charlotte Mulhall, one of the notorious ‘Scissor Sisters’, has been transferred to Limerick Prison after she was caught having sex with a prison worker in her cell, the Irish Daily Mail has learned.
The employee is now facing full disciplinary sanctions up to and including dismissal over the incident, it is understood.
Charlotte Mulhall, 35, and the jail worker were caught ‘seminaked’ and ‘in the act of sex’ on December 22 by a prison officer in her jail cell, sources say.
As a consequence Charlotte Mulhall was transferred to Limerick jail on Christmas Eve.
A prison source said: ‘They were literally caught in the act of having sex.’
Charlotte Mulhall was transferred to Limerick jail despite her preference to remain in the Dóchas Centre, in the Mountjoy jail complex, where she has been mainly kept since being jailed in 2006 for murder.
Mulhall was jailed along with her sister Linda for killing their mother’s partner, Kenyan Farah Swaleh Noor, in 2005. After stabbing him up to 20 times, they dismembered his body and dumped parts of it in the Royal Canal. His head has never been found. The crime led to the pair being dubbed the Scissor Sisters.
Although Mulhall has now been transferred to Limerick she could return to the Dóchas later.
Sources say the prison worker involved is in far greater trouble for being discovered to have a sexual relationship with an inmate.
Well-placed sources say prison authorities believe there is enough evidence to dismiss the employee for their actions, considering the ‘circumstances’ of how the pair were detected.
‘There can be no denial that [employee] was having sex with Mulhall, such was the circumstances of how the two were found together,’ added a prison source.
However it is also possible the worker could resign or retire before being potentially sacked.
It is understood an investigation was launched after the pair were found in Mulhall’s cell.
The Irish Prison Service declined to comment yesterday.
In early December, prison bosses became suspicious that the prison worker may have been involved sexually with Mulhall for several months. They were alerted to this by a prison officer.
The matter was taken so seriously the prison worker in question, as well as Charlotte Mulhall, were questioned separately about their relationship.
Both denied any kind of sexual involvement.
Mulhall’s cell was searched as a consequence of the initial allegations. The search in early December uncovered a sex aids and a packet of condoms.
A prison source added: ‘This prison worker was aware that their bosses had suspicions but they clearly didn’t stop. A close eye was kept on this [employee] and [they] have now been caught red-handed.’
This is the second time Charlotte Mulhall has been embroiled in a scandal with prison staff.
In November 2017 a male member of prison staff was found hiding behind a shower curtain in Mulhall’s en-suite bathroom. The officer was ‘very flustered’ and CCTV recorded him entering her cell ten minutes earlier.
Prison officers later entered Charlotte Mulhall’s room as there was a suspicion the pair were in a sexual relationship.
When interviewed in the aftermath of the incident, Charlotte Mulhall claimed that she had been involved in a ten-month affair with the married man.
Women sent to the Dóchas Centre are said to enjoy a ‘relaxed regime’.
Each prisoner has a cell key to their own en-suite rooms.
This is not the first time Mulhall has been involved in controversy since her imprisonment for murder.
In 2015 she 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 Mulhall at the Dóchas Centre while Kelly was serving a threeyear sentence for assault in 2009. She was released in 2012 and gave an interview in which she spoke of her love for the killer.
In 2008 Charlotte was also disciplined after photos emerged of her posing for the camera, jokingly holding a knife to the throat of a male inmate in the jail’s kitchen.
Got transferred to Limerick Prison
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 centre.
Mother-of-four Linda had been expected to be reunited with the former prison officer once she was free.
She was released from Dóchas a year ago after serving her sentence for manslaughter.
However the man, who took early retirement after allegations of a sexual relationship with her emerged, indicated to the killer shortly before her release that he was not interested in maintaining contact outside prison.
She wrote to the ex-prison officer, who is married and lives with his spouse and children, shortly before her release. There was no reply.
A source said: ‘Linda thought herself and this prison officer were going to set up house when she got out of jail. She even had an idea of them spending their first Christmas together as a free woman and that the relationship would continue and blossom. That is not the case.’