Courtney Harrison accessed records of some of Britain’s most notorious killers (Image: SWNS)
A “nosy” prison worker has been jailed for searching the records of the UK’s most notorious killers including Lucy Letby, Rose West and Harold Shipman. Courtney Harrison, 27, had access to confidential information in her prison service role, involving a variety of administrative duties, at HMP Moorland in Doncaster, a court heard.
It was there she searched up the personal records of some of the UK’s worst criminals in an action that was described as a “grave breach of trust”, a crown court was told. Prisoners included Britain’s most prolific serial killer Harold Shipman and notorious child murderer Rose West.
She also accessed the files of nurse turned infant murderer Lucy Letby, 36, and murderer Damien Bendall, 36, who killed his pregnant girlfriend, her two children and another child.
On Tuesday July 7, Sheffield Crown Court heard how Harrison also looked up, and passed on confidential information from the prison records of serving cash machine raider, George Tunney. The information ended up on his phone.
Harrison was charged with misconduct in public office and causing a computer to perform a function to secure/enable unauthorised access to a program, both of which she pleaded guilty to at an earlier hearing.
HMP Moorland where Harrison was a prison worker (Image: SWNS)
She sobbed in court on Tuesday when she was jailed for 21 months. Judge Jeremy Richardson KC, described her actions as “comprehensively wrong”.
He said: “Prison officers, and officers within the prison, have reposed within them a very considerable responsibility and trust.
“When an individual breaches that trust, punishment must follow, and an example has to be made of them.”
Judge Richardson regarded the most serious aspect of Harrison’s conduct to be her decision pass on confidential information about inmate George Tunney, a friend of a friend, when asked to do so.
The information passed on by Harrison, who was 23 at the time of the offences, subsequently “ended up in Tunney’s cell,” Judge Richardson said.
He continued: “She had some sort of connection to Tunney. It appears she prevailed upon you as your friend, knowing that you had access to confidential information about prisoners, to look up certain details relating to Tunney.
The email was found on a device he had improperly had within his cell.
Judge Richardson noted that Tunney subsequently absconded from the prison, before being later found and arrested.
Courtney Harrison was sentenced to 21 months in prison (Image: SWNS)
He said there was no evidence to suggest Harrison had “assisted” him in his escape. Addressing Harrison, the Judge Richardson told her: “It would be a very serious matter if there was any evidence revealing that you had materially assisted a prisoner to abscond.
“Your prison sentence would be measured in several years.”
The other aspect of Harrison’s offending, said Judge Richardson, related to her “nosiness” when it came to notorious prisoners.
Judge Richardson said: “You accessed in 2022 and 2023 a number of personal records of very high profile criminals who were serving long sentences…all of whom were notorious criminals.
“You accessed the records of at least four others who were in prisons in the north of England, one of whom was a Category A prisoner.”
Judge Richardson said that while it was right to say no actual harm had been caused in relation to Harrison’s accessing of the records of notorious criminals, her conduct when taken as a whole was a “very serious matter”.
“You were, in effect, dancing around the edge of a volcano. That volcano erupted, and here you are in the Crown Court facing a sentence.”
Judge Richardson said he had taken the many aspects of Harrison’s mitigation into account, such as her young age at the time of the offences. Other aspects included her lack of previous convictions, her prospect of rehabilitation and the low risk of reoffending she is deemed to pose.
He concluded, however, that appropriate punishment – “an element of which is deterrence” – can only be achieved with an immediate prison sentence.
Judge Richardson said: “What you did was comprehensively wrong. To access the private criminal and prison records of past and current prisoners. It was a grave breach of trust.”