Prison officer ‘came in on days off' to have sex with convicted rapist

Telegraph

14-05-2025

A female prison officer came into work on her days off to have sex with a convicted rapist inmate, a court heard.
Cherri-Ann Austin-Saddington, 29, had a six-month relationship with Bradley Trengrove while working as a warden at HMP The Verne on the Isle of Portland in Dorset.
They had sex up to 40 times, often in prison workshops while nobody was around, and the mother-of-three even got pregnant before losing the baby.
After the inmate was moved to another prison, she visited him with an empty Calpol syringe in her bra so she could 'artificially inseminate' herself with his sperm.
Austin-Saddington, from Weymouth, pleaded guilty to charges of misconduct in a public office, but she avoided jail, being a given a two-year suspended sentence.
Bournemouth Crown Court heard she started working as a prison officer at Verne Prison in July 2019.
Her probation period was extended because she was suspected of having an inappropriate relationship with two prisoners, the court was told.
In January 2022, Trengrove, who was serving a 13-year extended jail sentence for raping a woman and having sexual activity with a child, was transferred to the prison.
He entered a relationship with Austin-Saddington in August of that year.
During the affair, she smuggled a mobile phone into the Category C prison for him and saved his name in her phone under 'husband to be', the court heard.
Robert Bryan, prosecuting, read out messages she sent to Trengrove stating he was 'the one', her 'reason for living', and that she would love him 'til my last breath'.
Trengrove's account of the relationship, read to the court by Mr Bryan, 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.'
The pair had unprotected sex between 30 and 40 times, the court heard. In November, she told him she was pregnant, but lost the baby at about eight weeks.
In March 2023, Trengrove was moved to HMP Channings Wood in Devon, where Austin-Saddington tried to send him intimate photos that were intercepted by staff.
On May 26 of that year, she visited him under a false name. During a pat down search officers found she was not wearing any underwear and had the empty syringe in her bra.
She was arrested after the visit.
Emily Cook, defending Austin-Saddington, said her client took full responsibility for the affair.
She 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.
'You are not sentencing the woman who committed these offences, she's a very different woman now.'
She argued that her client shouldn't be jailed because she had been left wheelchair-bound having suffered a fall following her crimes.
Judge Jonathan Fuller KC said: 'Had it not been for the accident that befell Miss Austin-Saddington the sentence would have been an immediate sentence of imprisonment.'
Trengrove admitted encouraging or assisting her in the misconduct, having a mobile phone inside prison and using it for 'unauthorised transmission of images or sound'.
He was given another two years and three months to serve on top of his original sentence for his part in the affair.