Amy Hatfield helped bring a wave of narcotic substances to HMP Lindholme near Doncaster, helping inmate Joseph Whittingham — a man she was having an inappropriate relationship with
A prison nurse who helped to “flood” one of Britain’s jails with drugs is set to break her silence. It comes after she was sentenced to over 10 years in the bird for her role in the plot.
Amy Hatfield was instrumental in helping to get drugs into HMP Lindholme, close to Doncaster in South Yorkshire. In total, more than £1million worth of substances were brought into the prison, concealing them in ingenious ways.
Now, the woman is set to give her side of the story in a new BBC podcast that explained why she opted to take on the huge heist.
It includes the secret relationship she was having with an inmate who got her to bring in the illegal substances. Speaking on the BBC podcast “Gangster Presents: Sex, Drugs & Cell Block Parties” released on Friday (November 14), Hatfield revealed that she had been in an inappropriate relationship with inmate Joseph Whittingham for weeks.
Working at the prison as a nursing assistant, she was soon convinced to bring in a host of drugs to the jail, hiding them in all sorts of ways. 40-year-old Amy said that before she was booked in 2019, she had started to fall for Joseph, revealing the couple had been communicating through an illegal phone he had.
She explained that over time, the pair began to bond, and to her it seemed clear they were wanting to be together. “At the start we just talked about going away together, weekends away, just spending time with families… but it didn’t turn out that way,” she said.
“He said we could make some money before he gets out; obviously, I shouldn’t have crossed the boundary, but I did.” Barnsley native Hatfield was sentenced to ten years and two months in prison for her role in flooding the prison with drugs such as MDMA, cannabis, steroids and other prohibited items such as mobile phones.
She went to extreme lengths to conceal the contraband, going as far as to fill Ribena bottles with the drug spice. At her sentencing at Sheffield Crown Court in 2023, presiding judge Kirstie Watson said that she had carried out a “significant breach of trust and abuse of position” as a result of her affair.
She added that Joseph was able to “exploit” Amy due to her infatuation with him. The judge ruled that Amy was sold a dream and tricked into co-operating with Joseph’s plans to flood the jail with narcotics and illegal substances.
He was also sentenced to 11 years and four months in prison, but died earlier this year after being moved to HMP Woodhill, according to investigations from the prison’s ombudsman. A total of 17 different people were eventually imprisoned for their individual roles in the conspiracy, which also involved inmates booking fake mental health checks in order to hand parcels over discreetly.
Police would later describe the bust as one of the most complex that was ever seen in Britain. Among those arrested were five people who were already in jail, as well as friends and relatives who sourced the illegal contraband to sneak into the prison.
Court documents confirmed that drug use in Lindholme had spiked whilst Hatfield worked there and dropped after she was arrested.
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