Cherrie-Ann Austin-Saddington29, was convicted earlier this year of abuse of power and smuggling of a prohibited article in the prison where he worked.
For nearly a year the woman had kept intimate relationships with a prisoner convicted of rape -among them one under-age– and attacks on dozens of women.
The man, called Bradley Trengrovewas transferred in May 2025 to another prison, while the young woman left her job the same day. The event, which occurred in United Kingdombegan with a paper that the prisoner left in a magazine for the prison guard.
“In this job, you hear stories of people who have relations with prisoners. You think: ‘How horrible. My God, how can they do that?’ I never imagined I would be that person. And I was”she said through tears Cherrie-Ann a The Guardian. «I feel terrible, I can’t deny it. How did I let this happen to me?».
The magazine that created the link between the guard and the prisoner
Cherrie-Ann was 26 years old and was working as a guard at HMP The Verne men’s prison in Dorset, United Kingdom, when prisoner Bradley Trengrove he returned a magazine. From that act that occurred on an afternoon in 2022while she performed routine tasks in the reading room, changed her life forever.
The prisoner had hidden among its pages the telephone number from his clandestine cell phone. Austin-Saddington hesitated whether to report it or not. Ultimately, he chose to keep the role.
Cherrie-Ann Austin-Saddington was 26 years old and had three children when she began her relationship with the prisoner. Photo: IG/cherrie_16At that time, the young woman was raising her three children in temporary accommodation. She did it alone, after having escaped an “abusive relationship,” according to what she told the British media.
Work in a prison It was something he had been “curious about” when he was a teenager. That became a reality and also a routine, among inmates who were mostly sex offenders of advanced age.
«Many people will say that I was madly in love with him. I would say that it was the only support I had in my life and I clung to him»sentenced about her relationship with the prisoner who seduced her.
As we anticipated, the link with Trengrove – who had been in the prison since January of the same year – began with seemingly trivial request which included a magazine. Since then he crossed her in hallways and workshops, in addition to giving her comments and greetings.
Everything was going normally until one day the man returned the magazine with the hidden number and asked him for a kiss.
She rejected it, but did not report the incident for “fear that her superiors They will misunderstand the situation«, she said. The thing is that she had previously been pointed out in the institution – in which she assured that there were rivalries between colleagues – for alleged approaches with another prisoner.
Furthermore, the prison guard had had one relationship with an officer that “he had abused her trust” and left her “destroyed.” Bradley began to comfort her. and to have daily conversations with her.
A boxing lover, the young woman was left paralyzed after an accident. Photo: IG/cherrie_16“At first it was one or two messages a day […] The conversation focused on how he was doing. He would write to me and say, ‘I saw you at work before. “You were pretty”revealed to The Guardianwhere he revealed a high level of manipulation by the prisoner.
The prisoner even made his grandmother, his mother and his brother They will contact her. “It was as if I had found a family who supported me”she said excitedly. “And a couple of months later, he said to me: ‘I think I I’m falling in love of you’”.
Intimate relationships with the sexual aggressor reported by more than 20 women
Austin-Saddington knew that he was a convicted of rapebut Bradley told him that this was “an injustice.” In his version, he had been “wrongly reported.”
In 2015Trengrove had been convicted of repeatedly raping a teenager and having sexual relations with a minor.
Following his conviction – in which he was described as «exceptionally dangerous» – other twenty women reported having been assaulted for him. However, Austin-Saddington said she “was blinded,” which is why she “believed him.”
They had sexual relations repeatedly and she got pregnantbut lost the baby in a miscarriage.
The relationship continued until May 2023when she was arrested after trying to bring a syringe into the prison. According to the investigation, he wanted her to inseminate herself with his semen.
But the sentence to Cherrie-Ann to two years of imprisonment was suspended for a cerebrovascular accident which left her paralyzed. “I know I didn’t go to jail, but I’m locked in my body forever»he lamented. For his part, the sex offender was added two more years to his previous sentence of 13 years in prison.
