Prison officer sacked after befriending criminals on Facebook

A prison officer has been sacked after befriending known criminals, including a murderer, on the social networking website Facebook, it has been reported.

Nathan Singh was investigated because he was suspected of supplying mobile phones and other banned items to inmates at HMP Leicester.

The probe failed to find any evidence of smuggling but discovered that the 27-year-old had made friends with 13 criminals online.

Seven of the "friends" had been in prison for murder, drugs offences, fraud, affray and theft, according to The Sun newspaper.

In one photo on Facebook, Singh was seen socialising at Cheltenham races last year with Tyrone Leadeatt, 28, who was subsequently jailed for two and a half years for 24 fraud offences.

Singh described him as a "good friend" he had known for ten years.

Another of his Facebook friends was Mark Simmonds, 37, who stabbed a victim to death outside a nightclub in Leicester in 1995. Simmonds, who also has convictions for burglary and theft, was freed in 2005.

A third was Daimi O'Brien, 26, who was jailed for two years for affray, while a fourth, Myron Wallace, 26, received five years for drugs offences and conspiracy to pervert the course of justice.

Singh has now been dismissed from the Prison Service for gross misconduct.

Giving evidence at a disciplinary hearing, Singh said he knew the criminals from school or playing football.

He said: "Sometimes when I logged on to my Facebook site there would be twenty-odd friends requests and I just accepted them.

"Sometimes I didn't even check them. I realise now it might have been naïve in the job I do."

Singh was a residential landing officer at Leicester jail, which holds around 400 prisoners.

The investigation, code-named Operation Earlgrey, was launched five months after Singh joined the Prison Service in January last year.

It found that Singh had been in phone contact with seven of the 13 criminal friends on Facebook.

Shadow Justice Secretary Dominic Grieve told The Sun: "Prison officers should be vetted before being offered a job, to check criminal connections. Cases like this demoralise the vast majority of dedicated prison staff."

A Prison Service spokesman said: "A prison officer from HMP Leicester had been associating with serving and former prisoners, outside the course of his employment and without authority.

"We take inappropriate relationships with prisoners very seriously. We do carry out thorough checks when we recruit prison officers.

"The vast majority of our staff are honest, hardworking and professional." (source: telegraph)