A female prison officer has been handed a suspended sentence after the court heard how she went to extreme lengths to ‘artificially inseminate’ herself with her prisoner lover’s sperm
A lovestruck prison officer who fell for an “exceptionally dangerous” inmate went to great lengths to inseminate herself using her convict lover’s sperm.
Guard Cherri-Ann Austin-Saddington became infatuated with sex offender Bradley Trengrove at HMP The Verne in Portland, Dorset. An illicit six-month relationship began, which saw the pair attempt to welcome a baby together by having sex in prison workshops while nobody else was around.
Austin-Saddington, 29, and Trengrove, 31, had sex on as many as 40 occasions while she was on duty. She became pregnant with Trengrove’s baby, but suffered a miscarriage.
When Trengrove was moved to another prison, they continued their fling, with Austin-Saddington visiting the convicted rapist under a false name, the court heard. She even plotted to get pregnant again by smuggling a Calpol syringe in her bra so she could “artificially inseminate” herself using sperm Trengrove had wrapped up in cling film for her.
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After pleading guilty to charges of misconduct in a public office, Austin-Saddington, from Weymouth, has been handed a suspended sentence after pleading guilty to charges of misconduct in a public office only because she has been left in a wheelchair having suffered a fall following her crimes.
Trengrove, from Cramborne, Cornwall, was already serving a 13 year extended jail sentence for raping a woman and having sexual activity with a child in 2013 and 2014. During the affair, the court heard how Austin-Saddington smuggled a mobile phone into the Category C prison for her lover so they could communicate.
The mother-of-three saved his name in her mobile under ‘husband to be’. When Trengrove, 31, was moved to another prison she visited him using a fake name. She was so infatuated with the convict that she went along with the bizarre plan to get pregnant by him again.
Trengrove was given another two years and three months to serve on top of his original sentence for his part in the sordid affair. Bournemouth Crown Court heard Austin-Saddington started working as a prison officer at The Verne in July 2019.
She was given a written warning in 2020 for concerns over her professionalism and interaction with prisoners. Her probationary period was extended because she was suspected of having an inappropriate relationship with two prisoners.
Robert Bryan, prosecuting, read out some gushing messages the prison officer sent Trengrove stating he was “the one”, that she would love him “til my last breath” and he was her “reason for living”.
Mr Bryan said: “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. 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 HMP Channings Wood in Devon in March 2023. Austin-Sadddington sent Trengrove intimate photos while he was at Channings Wood, but these were intercepted by staff.
On May 26 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 and she was arrested. Emily Cook, defending Austin-Saddington, argued that her client shouldn’t be jailed due to her ill-health.
She said: “She had this incredibly devastating physical event that has occurred since her offending. In February 2024, her then partner awoke to find her on the floor. 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. 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.” Nick Robinson, defending Trengrove, said it was a ‘genuine infatuation’, he was not corrupting her.
He said: “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.”
Judge Jonathan Fuller KC told Austin-Saddington: “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.”
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