Female jail officer, 47, who despatched sexts to financial institution robber is jailed

A female prison officer has been jailed after engaging in a ‘romantic relationship’ with an inmate who she called ‘Fitty McVitty’ and described as her ‘soulmate’.

Claire Lloyd, who used to work as a prison guard at Strangeways in Manchester, has been locked up for eight months after being found guilty of misconduct in a public office.

Lloyd, 47, became embroiled in an inappropriate relationship with Andrew Hall, 43, who was serving time at HMP Manchester for armed robbery.

Prosecutors accepted that their relationship did not become sexual, but said the pair declared their love for each other and exchanged hundreds of text messages and phone calls – some of which took place when Lloyd was on duty. The love-struck prison officer turned a blind eye to the fact that Hall was using an illicit phone in jail.

When rumours began to spread in the prison about their relationship, Lloyd 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. 

Lloyd had a long-list of pet names for her locked-up ‘soulmate’ including ‘Fitty McVitty’ and ‘Mr Softy’.

Indeed Hall’s name was saved in her phone as ‘Pete 381 Jonny’, with the number representing three words with eight letters – ‘I love you’.

Throughout their plethora of messages, Hall would describe carrying out sex acts on Lloyd, asking her to ‘take her knickers off’.

She sexted back, saying she was ‘getting undressed’ to ‘titillate’ him.   

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.

Prison authorities invited Lloyd to two ‘support meetings’ where she was asked if she was in a relationship with an inmate. Instead she ‘lied’ and claimed the allegations were ‘malicious’, Mr Hayhoe said.

The prosecutor said that two days before one such meeting in July 2022, Lloyd had texted Hall to tell him that ‘she loved him’. In another message that month, Lloyd said she ‘had his back’.

The following month, prison officers were called to an incident in Hall’s cell after the alarm was activated.

Lloyd arrived after other officers. ‘They told her to leave, saying the incident was her fault and that she was a corrupt b****,’ Mr Hayhoe said.

During a second ‘support meeting’, held in September 2022, Lloyd did not disclose the relationship and began to cry.

Prosecutors claimed she was trying to ‘gain sympathy and deflect away from her actions’. The police were called in, and Lloyd was suspended a year later in September 2023.

She was arrested as she arrived for a shift at the jail, and her phone was seized. Lloyd gave officers her PIN number.

The same day, officers searched Hall in prison using a handheld metal detector. The search gave a ‘positive indication’ that Hall had ‘secreted a metal object about his person.

Police did not recover the phone, and Hall was transferred to another jail. Analysis of Lloyd’s phone revealed the pair had shared hundreds of phone calls and text messages between April and September 2022.

When Lloyd was interviewed by police, she claimed that other prison officers had a ‘vendetta’ against her. She said that their ‘friendship grew’ after Hall had helped her with ‘problem inmates’.

Hall asked her for her number, and although she initially refused, she later gave it to him.

Lloyd, of Warrington, pleaded guilty to misconduct in public office at an earlier hearing, while Hall admitted intentionally encouraging or assisting the commission of an indictable only offence.

Hall was serving an extended prison sentence of 14 years after carrying out an armed robbery at a bank in Derbyshire in 2015.

He burst into the RBS bank in Matlock armed with an imitation firearm, and was handed £1,000 after demanding cash. His earliest release date was expected to be February next year, before he was handed his latest sentence.

Defending, Gerald Baxter said Hall was ‘almost careless about his own position’ and wanted his lawyer to highlight positive aspects of Lloyd’s character. 

‘He clearly feels a sense of responsibility for it, he says that he is devastated that Ms Lloyd is in so much trouble,’ Mr Baxter said.

Hall said she assisted ‘extremely depressed’ prisoners and supported an inmate with suicidal thoughts. On one occasion she dragged a prisoner out of a cell which was on fire, he said.

Katherine Wright, Lloyd’s barrister, said the defendant had suffered stress and problems at work as well as ‘traumatic family events’, and said Hall had showed her ‘kindness’.

Ms Wright said Lloyd is a single mother-of-four who also helps to care for her parents.

Lloyd has since found new work in a call centre – a job she would lose if sent to jail, Ms Wright said.

The lawyer described Lloyd as an ‘upstanding member of society’, and told the court that the mum of a suicidal child felt that Lloyd had ‘saved his life’ after she spoke with the boy.

Ms Wright said of Lloyd’s offending: ‘These incidents are clearly huge errors of judgement on her part, they are going to cost her dearly. But in my submission, they are wholly out of character for her.’

She appealed for Lloyd to be spared jail, but the judge, Recorder Andrew McLoughlin, said the offending was so serious that it merited a prison sentence.

‘You knew what you were doing was wrong,’ the judge told her. ‘It went on for a period of five months.

‘On at least two occasions you had the opportunity to share your problems and issues with colleagues at meetings, but chose not to. Save in exceptional circumstances, any offence of this nature might result in immediate custody.’

Lloyd will serve half of her eight month sentence behind bars.