Inmate who seduced warder for drug smuggling is back behind bars

Shameless Andrelle Leedham, who lived in Shropshire after his release from prison, smiled broadly and raised two thumbs in the air as he was led from the dock.

The 26-year-old had returned to crime after winning the heart of operational support prison officer Hannah Stewart, 27, while doing time for blackmail in Featherstone Prison where she had worked for four years.

The pair launched a sexual relationship behind bars that continued after his release on August 23 last year, Derby Crown Court heard yesterday.

Then he persuaded besotted Stewart, whose father and brother were also prison officers at the jail, to smuggle a loaf-sized parcel of contraband weighing two kilos that had been packed by him into Featherstone Prison, which sits alongside the M54 and serves Shropshire, on November 22.

The package held skunk cannabis, 700 anabolic steroid tablets, seven mobile phones, eight bottles of alcohol and cigarettes.

Stewart was told by inmate Christopher Lewis – who had links with Leedham – to give the contraband to fellow prisoner Ricardo Edwards, the court was told. The pair were almost immediately detained by suspicious prison staff before the package could be opened because they were in a part of the jail where they should not have been.

Leedham, whose family live in Blakenhall, Wolverhampton, but who set up home in a bedsit in Telford after his release, was convicted after a trial of plotting to supply cannabis, anabolic steroids and convey mobile phones into HMP Featherstone.

Edwards, 31, who is serving an indeterminate sentence for robbery, and 29-year-old Lewis, who is in Featherstone for supplying heroin, each admitted conspiring to supply heroin in the jail and were both given two-year, three-month jail terms.

Stewart, from Oaks Drive, Featherstone, who has admitted misconduct in a public office and conspiracy to supply drugs and anabolic steroids, is currently on bail and will be dealt with at a later date.