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Beatrice Auty stands outside HMP Bronzefield in Surrey, where she served more than a year for money laundering and claims she was sexually harassed by a male prison officer. Auty says she reported what happened, and told us she’s spoken to other women who have had similar experiences with the same guard, who made “comments about their breasts” and “how he would want [oral sex] from them”. With prisons across the country running out of cells and the government releasing offenders early to ease pressure, the BBC has been reporting on the issues facing a system on the brink of collapse. A record 165 prison staff were sacked for misconduct in the year to June 2024, according to His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS). That’s an increase of 34% on the previous year.
Some of the reasons for these dismissals include sex acts and other inappropriate behaviour with inmates, as well as selling drugs and phones – a lucrative trade inside prisons.In 2023, Auty was convicted of smuggling millions of pounds of criminal cash from London to Dubai, and sentenced to 42 months in prison. She served 14 months in HMP Bronzefield before being released on licence. Auty describes how it was “not uncommon at all” to see prison staff in Bronzefield dealing. “The drugs would often be transported on the food trollies and then distributed at the other end on the house blocks,” Auty says.
“They’ve got to up the ante by searching officers going in,” Davis says. “I was searched twice in three years and that isn’t good – we need to stop it at the gates.” A prison officer who doesn’t want to be identified who works in a different, government-run English jail, told us it’s unsurprising to hear about staff corruption. She says everyone working in prisons knows drugs are being supplied by officers.Corruption inside prisons is now “a greater problem than it has ever been,” according to John Podmore, a former governor of several large prisons. The vast majority of officers are corrupted as a result of conditioning, manipulation, coercion and blackmail, while being badly trained, poorly led and inadequately supervised,” he adds.
Steven Gillan from the Prison Officer Association told the BBC that, while he defends the vast majority of “hard working and professional” prison officers, he is “not going to sugar coat the issue of corruption” – one he describes as “very real”. The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) says it is “catching more of the small minority who break the rules. This includes by bolstering our Counter Corruption Unit and strengthening our vetting processes
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