A female prison officer carried on her flirtatious relationship with a convicted murderer – even after being suspended from her job.
Nottingham Crown Court heard how Jasmine Hope exchanged messages with the killer, in which he told her the tight trousers she was wearing made him ‘twitch’.
The 31-year-old also sent the prisoner a message in which she reminded him of when they were ‘being naughty on video’ over Facetime.
But because their relationship never progressed to being a physical sexual one, Hope has been spared an immediate prison term.
Handing the defendant a six month jail term, suspended for 18 months, Recorder Balraj Bhatia KC said: ‘There is a distinction here between those cases where there is a sexual element to it or where an official is used to bring contraband into a serving prisoner.
‘Those cases undermine public confidence and they need to have a deterrent sentence.
‘You have pleaded guilty and have shown an appropriate level of regret, remorse and shame for your actions.’
Lauren Fisher, prosecuting, said Hope began working at HMP Lowdham Grange, in Nottinghamshire, in May 2023, and was soon working on D Wing where the murderer – identified only on court as ‘IM’ – was housed.
Jasmine Hope, 31, (pictured) pleaded guilty to misconduct in a public office after exchanging flirtatious messages with a convicted murderer
In an interview Hope said she was ‘going through a really hard time, accepting the messages were flirty and was embarrassed by them’
Ms Fisher said that on January 29, 2024, an illegal mobile phone was recovered from the killer’s cell and was forensically examined.
The prosecutor said: ‘There was only incoming data perhaps showing he had deleted any outgoing messages.
‘One contact sending data to IM was saved in the phone as ‘Carla’ and inquiries later identified Carla to be Jasmine Hope as it was the one she had registered as her own with the prison.
‘That perhaps shows the level of unsophistication used,’ Ms Fisher added.
‘On September 2, 2024, a search was carried out at her address and a mobile phone was recovered and a contact called ‘Mel-Me’ was saved on it as identified to be IM.
‘She was suspended from work in July 2024, so, despite being suspended, she had continued to contact the mobile saved as IM.’
Miss Fisher said the prosecution accepted that the relationship between Hope and the killer was ‘flirtatious but did not go any further than that’ and that there was no evidence of ‘any sexual contact between them’.
She said: ‘Examples of voice notes and WhatsApps include her saying “can you remember [when] you Facetimed me and we were being naughty on video?”
‘There was another in which she said “Can you remember when we were in the office and I said ‘are my trousers too tight?” and you said “you just made my **** twitch”.
‘Even after she was suspended it is abundantly clear the contact continued.’
Hope, of Sandhills Road in Derbyshire, pleaded guilty to misconduct in public office and has no previous convictions of any kind.
In an interview Hope said she was ‘going through a really hard time, accepting the messages were flirty and was embarrassed by them’, the prosecutor said.
As part of her suspended sentence order, the judge ordered her to carry out 100 hours unpaid work and to attend 15 rehabilitation sessions.
