A Midlands prison officer exchanged more than 5,000 illicit Snapchat messages in a secret relationship with an inmate at a maximum security jail, a court was told today. Jade Morris, 37, from Holmer, Hereford, and former inmate Jerome Nunes, 35, are due to be sentenced after admitting their roles in the affair.
Court hears details of secret communications
At Birmingham Crown Court on Thursday, October 8, prosecutor Cathlyn Orchard opened the facts of the case. Nunes, from Newport in south Wales, has 23 previous convictions for 31 offences and was at HMP Long Lartin in Worcestershire serving a sentence for a drugs conspiracy offence imposed at Cardiff Crown Court in 2019.
The court heard that Nunes was subject to a cell search in October 2022, leading to the nearby recovery of one of several phones used to communicate with Morris, mainly in the early hours. Morris was arrested at her home address in January 2023.
Investigation uncovers thousands of messages
Ms Orchard told Judge Peter Carr: “She (Morris) said it (her mobile phone) was personal and private and refused to hand it over. She denied having a relationship with Nunes. She said the allegations were 'ludicrous'.”
The 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 WhatsApp messages and 23 files had been shared between them. Further inquiries recovered evidence of Snapchat calls and messages, with over 5,000 messages exchanged in total.
Defence arguments and sentencing
Morris was interviewed again in May 2024, when she admitted communicating with a prisoner who she refused to name, claiming to have been feeling intimidated and frightened. Ms Orchard said of deleted material and messages recovered during the inquiry, including a letter found on Nunes’s phone: “It seems implicit that they must have been sharing sexual images.”
Holly Sims, arguing that Morris could be dealt with by a suspended sentence, said: “There is no evidence of any physical contact or of explicit photos being shared between either of the two defendants. It is of course conceded that these offences are serious. She is extremely ashamed and embarrassed of her behaviour.”
Defence lawyer Matthew Bolt argued Nunes, who was freed almost two years ago, could be spared an immediate prison sentence. Describing Nunes as a “man in a hurry” who is now running a small nascent food business, Mr Bolt said: “He is successful enough already to be employing others in that business. He is a man in a hurry to make up for the lost time from his family and he is anxious to be a law-abiding success. Sentence can be suspended in confidence he would not trouble the courts again.”
Morris pleaded guilty at a hearing in March to offences of misconduct in public office and encouraging Nunes to use a prohibited device. Nunes 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.
Both defendants, who had been on bail, were remanded in custody overnight and will be sentenced on Friday, October 9.
