A “smitten” prison officer helped her inmate lover escape from jail, who then went on to strike up a relationship with a second woman while on the run, a court heard.

       Erica Whittingham, 33, became enamoured with violent robber Michael Seddon while working at HMP Dovegate in Staffordshire.

       Seddon, who was jailed in 2011 for tying up and attacking a 71-year-old man, continued the relationship with Whittingham after he was transferred to a second prison in Derbyshire.

       In December 2019, Whittingham drove Seddon to freedom after the criminal escaped the prison by tricking prison staff with a decoy he had left in his cell.

       For the next six months, the former prison officer remained in contact with her lover, meeting him in hotels around England and paying for accommodation while he was on the run, Derbyshire Crown Court heard.

       Police arrested Seddon in March 2020 after discovering he had formed a relationship with another woman in Bournemouth earlier that year.

       A ‘difficult and sad’ case

       Whittingham will now return to prison as an inmate rather than an officer, having been jailed for three years after admitting to harbouring an escaped prisoner and misconduct in a public office.

       Mark Sharman, Whittingham’s defence barrister, said she had been diagnosed with depression as a result of what happened.

       “She was smitten with this man,” he said. “It is right that history is littered with the often foolish and extreme things people have done in the name of love.”

       The judge, Recorder Balraj Bhatia QC, described the case as “difficult and sad”.

       He added: “I accept that you may have been going through difficult times, that your marriage of 11 years standing had dissolved, and you may have been emotionally vulnerable, but you knew what you were doing was wrong.

       “The evidence makes it plain that you were responsible for escorting him away from those premises in due course, in the knowledge that he was an escaped prisoner.”