A court has jailed a psychologist from HMP Swinfen Hall. Amber Gayle began a sexual relationship with a prisoner and helped him get mobile phones into the jail.
She started work at the prison in 2021. Her caseload covered 50 young people with complex trauma needs. Many of them had suffered violence and sexual abuse in the past.
In early 2024, concerns arose about her relationships with prisoners, and she received counter-corruption training. In May that year she began a relationship with a prisoner. The two exchanged hundreds of messages, some containing explicit images. According to Staffordshire Police, Snapchat messages showed that they “carried out sexual activity” on prison grounds.
Phones, SIM cards and chargers
The prosecution estimated that the pair smuggled 35 mobile phones into the prison. They also brought in three chargers, four dongles and nine SIM cards. Prosecutors put the couple’s potential earnings at up to £9,550.
She used one of the SIM cards to contact the man’s associates and arrange collection of goods meant for him. She also kept stocktakes of which phones they had sold and which he still held.
Investigators found sexually explicit videos and images of the pair. She also searched the prison intelligence database on the man’s behalf to find out where another prisoner was. When she learned of planned cell checks, she warned him.
Sentence
She appeared at Birmingham Crown Court on 3 November. There she pleaded guilty to three offences: misconduct in a public office, conspiring to bring a prohibited article into a prison, and unauthorised access to data. She received 28 months for misconduct in a public office, plus six months for the computer misuse offence.
In mitigation, her barrister called the case “a tragedy”. The barrister said she had been of exemplary character, with an unblemished record at school and university. She had also done voluntary work.
Her Honour Judge Buckingham noted that the extra training on boundaries had not worked. The judge told her: “You were a prison psychologist who prisoners felt they could trust. Far from being under the thumb of the man, you were the equal of him, if not in charge.”
The prisoner pleaded guilty to conspiring to bring a prohibited item into a prison. He also admitted having a specified item in a prison without authority. He received a further one year and two months, to run after his current sentence ends.
Det Supt Ross Jones, of the West Midlands Regional Organised Crime Unit, spoke after the hearing. He said the psychologist “clearly used her position of authority to operate below the radar”. She had done so to get phones into the prison and to pursue an inappropriate relationship. He called it a complex and sophisticated operation that relied on a large amount of communication over a long period.
Swinfen Hall is a category C prison for men in the West Midlands. At its last full inspection, in November 2024, inspectors rated safety, respect and purposeful activity as not sufficiently good. They rated preparation for release as reasonably good.
