Female jail officers had ‘jail flings’ with inmate brothers who ran medication empire
Jai Gascoyne, 25, and Elle Walton, 27, have pleaded guilty to having ‘relationships’ with a pair of drug dealer brothers while working at HMP Buckley Hall in Rochdale
Jai Gascoyne worked at HMP Buckley Hall(Image: Handout)
Two female prison officers have admitted having relationships with a pair of drug-dealing brothers while they were locked up in jail.
Jai Gascoyne, 25, of Duckinfield, Greater Manchester, pleaded guilty to two counts of misconduct in public office concerning her relationship with 30-year-old Dil Nawaz while working at HMP Buckley Hall in Rochdale – and communicating by phone with another prisoner, Michael Haigh.
Elle Walton, 27, of Bacup, Lancashire, pleased guilty to misconduct in public office after she was found to have had a relationship with Dil’s brother Haq Nawaz, 32, also at HMP Buckley Hall.
The pair appeared alongside each other in the dock at Manchester Crown Court on Tuesday (23 June)..
The nature of the relationships, which took place between January and April 2024 and were originally reported in The Sun, were not clarified in court.
According to the Sun, the Nawaz brothers are accused of encouraging and assisting misconduct in public office and are set to appear at Manchester Magistrates’ Court on July 7.
A sentencing hearing has been listed for August 7.
The two wardens are believed to have been granted bail, while the Nawaz siblings remain in custody.
Brothers Haq and Dil Nawaz were jailed for 13 years and 10 months and 12 years respectively in September 2023, after they were found to have been the heads of an organised crime group along with a third brother Asim.
Investigators estimate that the gang sold somewhere between £2 million and £3.2 million worth of crack cocaine and heroine in just one year around Chorley and Preston.
This incident is not the first time prison officers have been found to have engaged in relations with inmates.
In January 2025, prison officer Linda Abreu was found guilty of misconduct in a public office and was sentenced to 15 months behind bars, after video emerged of her seemingly engaging in a sex act with a prisoner in a cell. She has since been released after 5 months behind bars.
The former prison guard was reportedly been let out on licence early due to a new initiative aimed at relieving overcrowding in jails, allowing well-behaved inmates to walk free after serving just a third of their sentence.
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