Prison officer did everything to cover up secret love affair with inmate... now she's behind bars

A female prison officer has been jailed after engaging in a ‘romantic relationship’ with an inmate armed robber who she described as being her ‘soulmate’.

Former Strangeways prison guard Claire Lloyd has been locked up for eight months for misconduct in a public office, after becoming embroiled in an inappropriate relationship with Andrew Hall. Prosecutors accepted that their relationship did not become sexual, but said the pair would declare their love for each other.

The couple exchanged hundreds of phone calls and text messages, with some calls lasting up to two hours. Lloyd turned a blind eye to the fact that Hall was using an illicit phone in jail.

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When rumours began to spread in the prison about their relationship, Lloyd, 47, claimed that the complaints were ‘malicious’ and that other staff had a ‘vendetta’ against her. But she was found out and suspended from her role.

Now the mum-of-four has faced the ultimate fall from grace, and joined Hall, 43, in becoming a serving prisoner. Hall received an extra nine months in addition to his current sentence.

Manchester Crown Court heard that Lloyd received anti-corruption training as part of her role at HMP Manchester. “Claire Lloyd would have been fully aware that any relationship with an inmate would have been breaching those rules and would have amounted to a criminal offence,” prosecutor Justin Hayhoe said.

Mr Hayhoe said that rumours began to spread across the prison that the pair were in a relationship. Lloyd went ‘out of her way to quell those rumours’ and claimed she had been ‘victimised’ by other staff at the jail.

She was invited to two ‘support meetings’ where she was