Isabelle Dale denies allegations that she had a physical sexual relationship with convicted robber Shahid Sharif, and helped run his spice drug running operation
A prison guard who was allegedly having sex with a convicted robber said the prisoner had threatened to kill her after forcing her to have her bottom enlarged.
Isabelle Dale, 23, has been accused of having an intimate relationship with Shahid Sharif, an inmate at at HMP Coldingley, who was jailed after participating in a brutal jewellery shop robbery, between September 1 and December 31, 2022. Southwark Crown Court was told this week that Dale – who denies ever having sex with Sharif – had romped with the prisoner in a prayer room at the jail while two other inmates played lookout.
Dale told the court that, despite being charmed early on by the inmate’s rapping, and saying at one point that she felt “privileged” to have him in her life, he had threatened her multiple times.
She said that Sharif had forced her to have her bottom enlarged – and to buy a ring to serve as a token of her fidelity, saying she was “instructed” to prove her loyalty. She said: “I bought the ring as I was instructed to by Mr Sharif to prove my loyalty to him. He threatened to stab me.
“He told me he hated me and wanted me to die.” She alleged Sharif was also controlling of her body, and had convinced her to ‘make permanent changes to myself'”.
She told the court: “Mr Sharif would degrade me a lot about my body size and my bum size. He would tell me I wasn’t good enough for him.
“He said that to be with someone as good as him I would have to make serious permanent changes to myself.” She had buttock fillers, but the surgery went wrong and she developed septic abscesses in her hips and back. Dale said when she was in hospital she was called “about a hundred times” by Sharif and his relatives.
Jurors were told Sharif had forced Dale to help him smuggle envelopes laced with spice, a sythentic drug designed to mimic the effects of cannabis.
She is alleged to have also operated Sharif’s Snapchat account to source the drug through an outsider, 27-year-old Lilea Sallis. Police said drug-smuggling paraphernalia was discovered in the boot of her car when Dale was arrested, including an engagement ring Dale claimed was purchased by Sharif, and a “framed canvas” depicting the two that hung over her bed.
When asked about the envelopes laced with spice by her defending solicitor, Syam Soni, she said she had no knowledge of what they contained, and “wouldn’t have dared” question Sharif over their intended use.
Mr Soni asked: “Did you wonder what he was doing with the envelopes?” And Dale responded: “I wondered, but I wouldn’t have dared to question him.” The guard went on to claim Sharif had confessed to sexual encounters with other prison officers in the past, and that she was told by the inmate to get a sex toy to prove she was not being intimate with anyone else.
She told the jury: “He disclosed to me that at HMP Coldingley he had been given oral sex by a previous prison officer. He told me it was investigated but that there was no further action because there was no evidence.”
Speaking about Sharif’s accusations she may have been sleeping with others, she said: “I had to have the toy to prove I wasn’t doing that.” Dale, of Portsmouth, says she and Sharif never had a physical relationship, but had instead participated in “phone sex”. She also denies two counts of misconduct in a public office and conspiracy to convey a “List A” prohibited article into prison.
Sallis, of East Sussex, denies conspiracy to convey a “List A” prohibited article into prison. Sharif earlier admitted conspiring with the two women and others unknown to convey drugs into prison.
The trial continues.
