Prison officer who had sex with ‘dangerous' rapist up to 40 times while on duty avoids jail

Sunday World

15-05-2025

Cherri-Ann Austin-Saddington had even plotted to get pregnant by the sex offender using a Calpol syringe
A prison officer who had sex with an 'exceptionally dangerous' rapist while on duty has avoided jail.
Cherri-Ann Austin-Saddington had sex up to 40 times with sex offender Bradley Trengrove at HNP The Verne in Dorset, England.
The pair had a six-month relationship, during which they had sex in the prison while Cherri-Ann was on duty.
The court heard she smuggled in a mobile phone for him so that they could communicate when she was not at work.
She had his number saved in her phone as 'husband to be.'
Convicted rapist Bradley Trengrove and prison officer Cherri-Ann Austin-Saddington
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In one text message she sent him, she called the rapist 'the one' and confessed he was her 'reason for living.'
When he was moved to a different prison she visited him under a false name.
Bournemouth Crown Court also heard she was pregnant by Trengrove but tragically lost the baby, before coming up with a cunning plan to get pregnant again.
The 29-year-old smuggled a syringe into the prison so her lover could collect his sperm and wrap it in cling film. She then planned to 'artifically inseminate' herself with it.
She was arrested following a pat-down search when the empty Calpol syringe was found in her bra.
The court handed her down a sentence of two years, suspended for 18 months after she pleaded guilty to charges of misconduct in a public office and conveying a mobile phone into a prison.
Trengrove was behind bars, serving a 13 year extended jail term for the rape of a woman and sexual activity with a child in 2013 and 2014 at the time of the relationship.
For his role in the affair, he was given a further two years and three months on top of his original sentence.
Austin-Saddington began working at the prison in July 2019, and by the following year, she was given a written warning after concerns were raised about her professionalism and interactions with the prisoners.
Her probationary period was also lengthened after she was suspected of engaging in an inappropriate relationship with two prisoners.
Trengrove was transferred to the prison in January 2022, and their relationship began in August.
He told cops they had sex up to 40 times in a prison workshop.
Prosecutor Robert Bryan, told the court: 'He said things moved on from being friendly in August-September 2022.
'He said 'I did maintenance work around the prison, there were lots of workshops, we would meet down at the workshops where less people were around. It got to the point she was coming in for work on days off and we would work together for three or four hours at a time.'
'He said they had unprotected sex 30-40 times,' he continued.
'She told him in November she was pregnant with his baby. He encouraged her to be less risky but she said that would mean less opportunity to meet.
'She lost the baby at about eight weeks.'
Trengrove was moved to a different prison in March 2023.
Austin-Saddington's defence Emily Cook told the court that her client was in a wheelchair following an 'incredibly devastating physical event that has occurred since her offending.'
The mother of three found herself wheelchair-dependent after her partner awoke to find her on the floor in February 2024.
'She doesn't know how but something was going on with her spine. She is wheelchair-dependent. She has had her liberty curtailed for many months, not by the court but by her ill health,' Cook said.
You can see from the messaging, they formed a very intense and infatuated relationship. She takes full responsibility for what she did. She is very ashamed and upset,' she added.
'You are not sentencing the woman who committed these offences, she's a very different woman now.'
Trengrove's defence Nick Robinson, said their relationship was 'genuine infatuation.'
'Everything was driven towards having conversation with someone he genuinely cared about.
'Before this he was a good prisoner, working hard towards the earliest possible release.
'He knew what he was doing, his heart ruled his head.'
At sentencing, Judge Jonathan Fuller KC told Austin-Saddington that the prison service expects the highest standards from their employees.
'Failure to apply those standards can have an enormous and lasting impact on the prisons, the care of inmates, the integrity which is to be maintained and, of course, public confidence.
'Your betrayal of that trust represents a serious and prolonged misconduct by someone in public office.
'I am mindful of your current physical state and pending rehabilitation. For that reason only I reduce the sentence in order to suspend it.
'Had it not been for the accident that befell Miss Austin-Saddington the sentence would have been an immediate sentence of imprisonment,' he said.
'The intensity of their feelings towards each other, as shown in the messages, could perhaps be described as mutual obsession with each other. The expressed intention was that they should spend the rest of their lives together.
'This was a relationship of equal halves, both making the wrong decision.'