She was a prison officer. He was a convicted rapist. How did she fall for him?

T here was a moment in the summer of 2022 when 26-year-old Cherrie-Ann Austin-Saddington, a female prison officer in a men’s jail, had to make a choice. She was on her wing at HMP The Verne in Dorset, in the day room where inmates go to read books and newspapers, when a prisoner called Bradley Trengrove handed her a magazine. Concealed within its pages was a slip of paper with a number written on it – the number of his secret, illicit mobile phone. Under the watchful eye of the prison’s security cameras, Austin-Saddington had to decide what to do next.

“I was thinking, do I report it ? Do I not report it?” she says. “I wasn’t thinking, I’ll text him – that wasn’t in my head. ” But she did not throw the piece of paper away. She kept it, and in the end decided not to report anythin