Prison guard who had sex with convicted burglar while in uniform jailed after affair with inmate ended up on Snapchat

Judge Rebecca Crane said that two videos of 20-year-old Alicia Novas "having sexual intercourse in her prison uniform" were shared on Snapchat by prisoner Declan Winkless and "ended up in the press".

Winkless, 31, was sentenced to three years and four months in prison for his role in the offending, consecutive to his current sentence, while Novas was jailed for three years.

Sentencing at Northampton Crown Court, the judge said Novas had been employed as a prison officer at HMP Five Wells in Wellingborough.

Read More: Ex-prison officer caught performing sex act on inmate by her own body camera jailed

Read More: 'Devious' prison officer who had sex with inmate and plotted to smuggle drugs jailed

She said Novas, of Raunds, Northamptonshire, gave her personal phone number to Winkless, who is serving a sentence of 11 years and three months for conspiracies to burgle.

She said there were nearly 3,000 contacts between the pair during the indictment period, with Winkless using four illicit devices.

Both defendants pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to multiple offences including Novas to misconduct in a public office between August 1, 2024 and December 24, 2024, with Winkless admitting to "encouraging and assisting" Novas in this offending.

These offences included Novas providing information about a prison informant and whether Winkless was suspected of wrongdoing by prison authorities.

The judge said the content of messages "demonstrates Winkless indicating he was romantically interested in Ms Novas, offering expensive gifts".

She said that "by November 16 the relationship became sexual including sexual intercourse".

The judge said that on November 23, 2024 Winkless asked Novas "who the snitch was" and Novas provided the name of a prisoner and told Winkless what prison authorities knew or suspected about his involvement.

"This put the informant at very considerable risk to his personal safety," the judge said.

"It also undermined any prison investigation."

She said Novas was "naive and immature".

"Given your age and inexperience you were vulnerable to being manipulated," the judge said.

"However, you could easily have reported matters to the prison authorities and sought assistance.

"You persisted in having contact over a significant period even after your arrest.

"You failed to consider the seriousness of your actions and the potential impact on the security and the safety of staff and prisoners and how it undermined the work of the prison."

She said that "even an inexperienced and naive prison officer would know that prisoners who are suspected of being informants are often victims of very serious violence".

"Therefore, providing the name of such a person to Winkless was extremely serious," she said.

Liam Muir, for Novas, said Novas was 18 at the time of the offending and had emotionally unstable personality disorder which was not known at the time.

The judge said she accepted Winkless was remorseful.

Both defendants appeared by prison videolink from HMP Peterborough for sentencing on Monday.

Novas had pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to two counts of misconduct in a public office, with Winkless admitting to encouraging and assisting these offences.

Both defendants admitted to two counts of unauthorised transmission of image or sound by electronic communication from within a prison, covering periods before and after Novas was arrested - from August 1 to December 24, 2024, and from December 23, 2024 to March 21, 2025.

They both admitted to two counts of conveying an article into or out of a prison, in relation to the cannabis and the two phones.

Winkless also admitted to unauthorised possession of a Motorola phone that was found in his cell when it was searched on December 22, 2024.

The judge said a statement from a manager at the prison details how such offending "damages public trust and undermines prison security".