‘I had illicit affair with rapist while I was his prison guard – it ruined my life’ | UK | News

Giving ‘crime of passion’ a whole new meaning, a female prison guard was spared jail even after admitting to a six-month long illicit affair with a convicted rapist serving his sentence at a prison in Dorset.

Once a guard at HMP The Verne in Portland, Dorset, Cherrie‑Ann Austin‑Saddington from Weymouth began her wild affair with inmate Bradley Trengrove in the summer of 2022 — August to be precise — when she was slipped a note by the convicted rapist which was hidden between the pages of a seemingly harmless issue of Farmers Weekly magazine.

The scrap of paper contained the number of Trengrove’s secret mobile phone in prison, and after debating whether she should report the incident or not, Austin‑Saddington, then 26, eventually decided against it. That was the match which started the fire.

Austin‑Saddington and Trengrove eventually began texting, talking on the phone, and subsequently meeting in the prison’s workshop zones. What followed was a sordid affair in which the pair had sex up to 40 times, often in prison workshops where nobody could see them, her trial heard.

Trengrove worked as a handyman and the couple would find hidden spots away from other staff and security cameras — places where they could talk and be intimate — giving them plenty of opportunities to spend time alone without the threat of being discovered.

While Austin‑Saddington claimed they were intimate “perhaps four or five times in total”, adding it was always with consent, Trengrove put their sexual encounters in the 30-40 times range.

Austin‑Saddington was well aware the man she was having an affair with was a convicted sex offender, telling MailOnline: “I knew he was a sex offender because it was a sex offenders’ prison.”

Trengrove was in jail for raping a woman and having sexual activity with a child, for which he was serving a 13‑year sentence. He had told Austin‑Saddington the crime he was convicted of was a lie, claiming he was sentenced after the misreporting of a relationship he had when he was 15.

The female prison guard naively believed the convict, blinded by what was described by her as a need for emotional connection. She also shared with MailOnline she was homeless at the time her relationship with Trengrove started, saying “things were very difficult”. The former prison warden felt she had no one to turn to or talk to, and she “just wasn’t in a very good place or a stable mind at the time and Bradley came along.”

Speaking about why she carried on with the affair, the ex-prison guard added: “I wanted a stable life. That’s what I wanted. I don’t know why I even entertained the idea of Bradley. I think I was just looking for someone to support me. I wanted that stable life that I wasn’t getting anywhere else.”

At the time of his 13-year sentencing in 2015 Trengrove was described as “exceptionally dangerous”.

Austin‑Saddington and Trengrove’s relationship escalated quickly — with the sex offender’s mother, brother and grandmother making contact with the prison officer and building ties. Trengrove on the other hand, began to profess his love for the warden a few months in, planting seeds about future plans, having children and building a life together.

In November 2022, the female prison guard became pregnant with Trengrove’s child, and the jailed rapist promised her commitment. The pregnancy ended in miscarriage eight weeks later, and that’s when Trengrove began monitoring Austin‑Saddington’s calls and demanding updates, making her feel responsible for his emotional stability and wellbeing.

Speaking to The Guardian, Austin‑Saddington shared she’d had a rough life: “I’ve had a lot happen to me in younger life that’s skewed my way of thinking. I’ve been sexually assaulted on quite a few occasions. I feel like I have to give my person everything because I’m not enough.”

The affair continued on for months, with secret correspondence, smuggled phone calls and clandestine meetings — in between, Trengrove was even transferred to a new prison, HMP Channings Wood, after his cell was searched and all his messages with Austin‑Saddington were found on his phone.

The fallout from the discovery was catastrophic for the prison guard, a mother-of-three, as she immediately resigned from her position at The Verne, spelling the end of her career in Prison Service, and increasing her dependence on Trengrove’s family

Austin‑Saddington was finally arrested in May 2023.

The prison guard was caught trying to smuggle a Calpol syringe into the prison to give to Trengrove so that he could fill it with his sperm, which the criminal then expected her to use to “artificially inseminate” herself in a bid to get her pregnant with his child again.

Visiting the Trengrove under a false name, Austin‑Saddington’s undoing was not wearing underwear and stuffing the empty syringe in her bra during her visit on May 26, 2023.

Arriving at the prison that day, Austin‑Saddington told The Guardian something didn’t feel right. Every visitor was being searched carefully by a senior officer, and when the ex-prison guard reached the front of the line, she was immediately taken to a separate room for questioning which had five officers waiting — police and prison staff.

She was questioned over having anything on her and she confessed to the hidden syringe in her bra. Austin‑Saddington was then told she was being placed under arrest on suspicion of misconduct in a public office.

She told The Guardian: “A lot of people would say I was crazy in love with him. I’d say that he was the only bit of support in my life and I clung on to it.”

Their relationship continued for another two weeks after her arrest, with Trengrove’s family now providing her legal support in the form of advice from the criminal’s solicitor.

At some point the police showed up at her home and told her the full extent of Trengrove’s crimes — something she had chosen not to research or dwell into till then — and that was when their relationship finally came to an end, with Austin‑Saddington asking Trengrove’s mother to tell him she no longer wanted anything to do with him.

Shortly after her arrest, someone reported Austin‑Saddington to social services and her twins were taken from her that day in 2023. The ex-prison warden told The Guardian as of November 2025, that she has still not seen her children, who are now six-years-old.

In February 2024, another catastrophic event rocked Austin‑Saddington’s world — she suffered a spinal stroke and was left paralysed from the chest down. This happened nine months after her relationship with Trengrove ended, and more than a year before her case coming to court.

In May 2025, the former prison guard’s trial saw her two-year sentence suspended by the judge owing to her paralysis. “I know I didn’t get prison time, but I am locked inside my body for the rest of my life.”

Two months after Austin-Saddington’s arrest, she started a new relationship with a tattoo artist, Jonny, whose services she had used to ink the sleeve on her right arm. The pair got married in November 2024 and he is now her carer.

Looking back at the affair, Austin-Saddington feels she was blinded, because Trengrove presented her with hope for the future, so much so that she had saved his number on her phone as “Husband to Be” at one point.

The entire ordeal has been especially taxing on her oldest daughter who “saw it all, which was really difficult”. Austin-Saddington says her daughter struggled at school and that made her “feel awful”.

“I felt like I just wanted to get in my bed for the rest of my life and never leave it.”

Austin-Saddington is taking steps to rectify her wrongs. She told The Guardian in November last year she had been working with a domestic abuse organisation and was excited about becoming a mediator to help other victims of domestic abuse. “I do feel like I still need to give back.”