Glam guards who fell for drug-dealing brothers make bid doomed freedom

Two glam prison guards who fell for drug dealing brothers want to be released from jail. HMP Buckley Hall officers Jai Gascoyne, 25, and Elle Walton, 27, were locked up earlier this year after they were discovered to have shared Valentines’ Day cards, gifts and dozens of phone calls and social media messages with inmates Dil Nawaz, 30, and Haq Nawaz, 32.

But their bid for freedom has been rejected by authorities, report the Manchester Evening News.

The brothers were serving long sentences at the Rochdale prison after flooding the streets of Lancashire with up to £3m-worth of class A drugs. Gascoyne and Walton, meanwhile, were ‘good friends’ who socialised outside work.

But their relationships, which took place in early 2024, were uncovered after the anti-corruption unit received a tip-off. In August this year, Manchester Crown Court heard Gascoyne ordered matching necklaces and bracelets, engraved with the initials of their first names, from Amazon, for her and Dil Nawaz.

Valentine’s Day cards from Gascoyne and Walton were also found in the brothers’ cell, while both prison officers also received money from the the Nazwazs’ associates. In messages Gacoyne and Walton referred to each other as ‘Mrs N’, said to refer their desire to get married to the Nawaz brothers.

But, the court heard, relationships did not become sexual and they did not smuggle contraband on the Nawazs’ behalf. Shortly before she left her job Gascoyne also exchanged a series of messages over Instagram with another Buckley Hall prisoner, called Michael Haigh, where she agreed to visit his cell for a ‘goodbye cuddle’, the court heard.

Gascoyne, of Chapel Street, Dukinfield, was jailed for 16 months after pleading guilty to two counts of misconduct in a public office. Walton, of Gordon Street, Bacup, Lancashire, was sentenced to 13 months in prison after she admitted one count of the same charge.

But at a hearing at London’s Appeal Court, lawyers representing the former prison officers both argued their sentences were ‘manifestly excessive’ and should have been suspended.

Nick Cockrell on behalf of Gascoyne said the sentencing judge had failed to take into account her previous good character, personal mitigation, remorse and her young age.

Michael O’Brien, representing Walton, argued there was ‘no sexual contact’, no items had been smuggled into the prison, the contact lasted just eight weeks and there was no evidence that she was being groomed for further crimes.

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Appeal Court judges Lord Justice Holgate, Mr Justice Grffiths and Judge Kearl rejected those arguments saying both Walton and Gascoyne acted with their ‘eyes open’.

In a written judgment they said both women had been ‘recently and specifially’ trained about why ‘this sort of conduct was unacceptable and dangerous’.

The judges said although the relationships weren’t sexual they were ‘commited, intense and… freely entered into’ and that while the two officers hadn’t smuggled phones into the jail their actions had ‘strongly promoted their use’ by inmates.