A prison governor has been found guilty of misconduct in a public office, after she started a relationship with a Liverpool drug gang boss nicknamed “Jesse Pinkman” after a character in the TV show Breaking Bad.
Kerri Pegg, 42, has been told she faces jail after she accepted a gift of a £12,000 Mercedes C-Class car, which Anthony Saunderson paid for with 34kg of amphetamines.
Saunderson, an organised crime boss now serving 35 years behind bars after being convicted of drug trafficking, is known to criminal associates as “Jesse Pinkman”, or “James Gandolfini” after the actor who played Tony Soprano in the mafia TV series.
He had been one of Merseyside’s most wanted criminals over his part in importing £19m of cocaine in shipments of corned beef from Argentina.
He was apprehended after law enforcement agencies broke into the encrypted EncroChat system, the phone network used by serious organised criminals. As well as Saunderson’s drug dealing, it revealed his relationship with Pegg.
The trial at Preston crown court heard Pegg had signed off on temporary release for Saunderson while she was a governor at HMP Kirkham in Lancashire. The court heard that Pegg, who had driven a Honda Jazz before Saunderson gave her the Mercedes, was seen as a “rising star” within the Prison Service, climbing the career ladder from graduate entrant to prison governor in just six years.
Pegg joined as governor of HMP Kirkham, a category D men’s open prison, in 2018. Saunderson had been moved to the prison in June 2017 after receiving a 10-year sentence in 2014 for drugs conspiracy and money laundering.
“Despite her success, she didn’t play by the rules that everybody else had to follow,” the prosecutor Barbara Webster told the court at the opening of the trial. “Her downfall was twofold – the first, despite having a good income, she lived beyond her means.
“She spent all her income and more, incurring debts, and she had county court judgments made against her. As a consequence, she became vulnerable and open to exploitation.”
During the trial, it emerged Saunderson had developed and delivered a programme titled BADD (Beating Alcohol and Drug Dependency) for inmates at several jails – while at the time being a major drug dealer, running an amphetamines factory.
Pegg claimed her contact with Saunderson was owing to his involvement in the BADD programme, but the court heard that even members of his own gang had complained that their boss was spending too much time with Pegg and away from his wife and “work”.
Detectives found Saunderson’s DNA on a pair of flip-flops and a toothbrush after a raid at Pegg’s home in Orrell, a suburb of Wigan, the court heard.
A police investigation also found that despite Pegg’s £3,000 a month income, she had significant debts, and had not declared three county court judgments to her employers. This amounted to misconduct, as debts make officials vulnerable to corruption.
Detectives found designer clothes, handbags and jewellery, and that Pegg had been living beyond her means, buying Jimmy Choo shoes and Chanel necklaces. Her four credit cards were “maxed out” and she had 6p in her savings account, the court heard.
“I didn’t think I was doing anything wrong, but when I look back now, I was incredibly stupid,” Pegg told the court, giving evidence in her defence. She was convicted of two counts of misconduct in a public office and one count of possession of criminal property, after the jury deliberated for two hours and 43 minutes following a three-week trial.
Pegg did not react as the guilty verdicts were delivered. Judge Knowles told her a prison term was “inevitable”, but bailed Pegg to the court building while the sentencing date was arranged.
Outside court, Tarryn McCaffrey, from the Crown Prosecution Service, said: “Kerri Pegg’s conduct fell far short of what might be expected from any professional within the Prison Service, let alone one of such a senior grade as prison governor.
“She was clearly involved in an inappropriate relationship with Saunderson after he was released and the evidence points to this going back further, to a time when he was in jail.
“This relationship, and the fact that Pegg failed to disclose her debts to her employers, amount to a gross breach of trust and are therefore extremely damaging to public confidence.”
Source: theguardian.com
