Newport drug dealer and prison officer jailed over ‘intimate’ phone relationship

Nation.Cymru staff/agencies

A man from Newport and a prison officer who exchanged thousands of illicit messages during an intimate relationship conducted through a banned mobile phone have both been jailed.

Jade Morris, who sent images of herself to convicted drug-dealer Jerome Nunes, was jailed for 12 months on Friday as a judge said she had undermined security and could have caused untold harm inside and outside HMP Long Lartin.

Nunes, who was freed from a previous sentence almost two years ago, was jailed for nine months at Birmingham Crown Court after being told he had “abused” his relationship with Morris.

The court was told on Thursday that the pair used multiple phones to communicate with each other after Morris started working at the maximum security jail in Worcestershire in 2022.

Morris described the allegations against her as “ludicrous” at the start of a police inquiry launched after Nunes threw his illegally-held “encrypted” mobile phone out of his cell window, the court heard.

The former custody officer Morris, 37, from Holmer, Hereford, pleaded guilty at a hearing in March to offences of misconduct in public office and encouraging Nunes to use a prohibited device.

Nunes, from Newport, pleaded guilty at Birmingham Magistrates’ Court in February this year to two offences under the Prison Act 1952 for possessing and using an unauthorised mobile phone.

The court heard the 35-year-old has 23 previous convictions for 31 offences and was at Long Lartin serving a sentence for a drugs conspiracy offence imposed at Cardiff Crown Court in 2019.

Passing sentence, Judge Peter Carr told the defendants: “Appropriate punishment can only be achieved by immediate custody.”

Judge Carr told Morris, who cried in the dock at the start of the hearing and dabbed at her eyes with a tissue: “You had been working at the prison since January 2022.

“You were fully aware of your responsibilities.”

10,000 messages

The judge, who was told that Morris called in sick on the day after Nunes’s phone was seized, said the “wrongful relationship” had involved up to 10,000 messages.

He told Morris her account to police had not been credible, adding: “You were clearly in an intimate relationship with Mr Nunes.

“I accept there was no evidence of a physical relationship.”

Rejecting Morris’s claims to have been frightened of Nunes, the judge added: “You could have reported matters but chose not to.

“I am quite satisfied that you willingly engaged in contact with Mr Nunes.”

The judge said illegal possession of mobile phones within prisons undermined security and carried a potential to “cause untold harm inside and outside the establishment”.

The judge said he had considered but decided against suggestions by defence lawyers that the sentences should be suspended.

Having heard that Nunes has recently been running a small food business, the judge told him: “I accept that you have tried to reintegrate yourself into the community.”

Nunes covered his face with his hands after being told his sentence would not be suspended.

Opening the facts of the case, prosecutor Cathlyn Orchard said Morris was arrested at her home address in January 2023.

The prosecutor said Morris’s phone was seized and extensive police inquiries were conducted, establishing that a number stored in Morris’s phone as “Ghost” was in fact Nunes, and that around 100 messages and 23 files had been shared between them on WhatApp.

Further inquiries recovered evidence of Snapchat calls and messages, including a call lasting for one hour and 42 minutes.

Morris was interviewed for a second time in May 2024, when she admitted communicating with a prisoner who she refused to name, claiming to have been feeling intimidated and frightened.

‘Integrity’

Commenting on the case, Georgina Davies, senior crown prosecutor in the Complex Casework Unit at the West Midlands Crown Prosecution Service, said: “Prison officers hold positions of significant trust and responsibility.

“The public are entitled to expect that those working within the prison system will act with integrity and always maintain clear professional boundaries.

“This case involved a sustained and deliberate breach of that trust. Jade Morris knew that prisoners should not have access to mobile phones yet chose to engage in a prolonged relationship with Nunes.

“We hope this case sends a clear message that those who abuse positions of public trust will be held to account.”

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