Wakefield Prison Nurse Guilty Of Affair With Rapist

4 October 2012, 17:44 | Updated: 30 March 2016, 13:50

A court has heard that a convicted rapist and a prison nurse from Normanton have been found guilty of having an affair at a jail in West Yorkshire.

Karen Cosford, 47, had sex with inmate Brian McBride, who was serving a life sentence at Wakefield Prison.

She sent him intimate texts on a smuggled mobile and even wrote him a love letter which was found hidden in a jar of sugar.

The jury heard that Cosford performed a sex act on McBride while she was on duty as two colleagues Carolyn Falloon and Jacqueline Flynn guarded his cell.

Falloon also caught her having sex with the inmate in the medical unit, but failed to report it.

Cosford, who worked in the jail's medical centre denied misconduct, claiming McBride raped her, then bribed and intimidated her so she wouldn't report it.

During a trial at Leeds Crown Court that lasted almost four weeks, she said he threatened to kill her and her family if she told anybody about their relationship.

But jurors rejected the claim after hearing how the prison nurse became inappropriately close to him and struck up a sexual relationship.

Cosford was found guilty of misconduct through engaging in a sexual relationship with an inmate. She was also found guilty of failing to tell prison authorities that McBride had a mobile phone, and bringing in top-ups on behalf of the prisoner.

Carolyn Falloon, 50, of Wakefield, and Jacqueline Flynn, 46, from Pontefract, were found guilty of failing to report the relationship and not reporting McBride's mobile phone. Falloon was also found guilty of supplying McBride with mobile top-ups.