‘I knew he was a sex offender… but I wanted a stable life’: Prison officer reveals shame of sordid affair with convicted rapist after she was spared jail for behind bars fling

A female prison officer who tried to start a family with a rapist inmate she fell in love with has admitted she knew he was a sex offender – but believed he would provide her a ‘stable life’.

Cherri-Ann Austin-Saddington, 29, told MailOnline of her ‘relief’ that she was this week spared jail after admitting a six-month illicit affair with sex attacker Bradley Trengrove while working as a warden at HMP The Verne in Portland, Dorset.

Saddington and Trengrove, who was serving 13 years for raping a woman and having sexual activity with a child, started their fling in August 2022 and had sex up to 40 times, often in prison workshops where nobody could see, her trial heard.

The female prison warden told Trengrove she was pregnant in November 2022, although she later miscarried after eight weeks.

After the ‘extremely dangerous’ inmate was transferred to another prison in March 2023, she visited him under a false name with a Calpol syringe in her bra to try and ‘artificially inseminate’ herself with his sperm, which he had wrapped in cling film.

Saddington, from Weymouth, was arrested after prison officers found she was not wearing underwear and had the empty syringe in her bra during the visit on May 26 2023.

Speaking exclusively to MailOnline after she avoided jail, Saddington admitted: ‘I knew he was a sex offender because it was a sex offenders’ prison.’

She added: ‘I wanted a stable life. That’s what I wanted. I don’t know why I even entertained the idea of Bradley. I think I was just looking for someone to support me. I wanted that stable life that I wasn’t getting anywhere else.’

MailOnline can also reveal that just two months after being arrested, Saddington started a new relationship with another man, whom she is now married to.

Cherri-Ann Austin-Saddington, 29, (left) tried to get pregnant with an ‘exceptionally dangerous’ rapist, Bradley Trengrove (right) 

The female prison warden got pregnant by Trengrove, although she later lost the baby

Saddington, who started working at HMP The Verne in 2019, pleaded guilty to misconduct in a public office, but was spared jail after a judge suspended her sentence for two years due to her being left in a wheelchair from a spinal stroke following her crimes.

‘It’s been a bit of a relief that it’s been suspended,’ she told MailOnline.

Saddington revealed that her relationship with Trengrove began when she was a ‘broken person’ and ‘homeless’ after her relationship with the father of two of her children ended.

She claimed she joined the Prison Service in 2019 to ‘go in and make a difference’ but soon realised ‘that’s not what the prison service is about’ and struggled to work in a men’s jail.

‘When the relationship [with Trengrove] started, I was homeless, there was a lot going on with my family. I was trying to look after my family as well as deal with life as a mum of three kids and working and being put into temporary accomodation with the kids.

‘Things were very difficult. I didn’t have anybody to turn to or talk to. I just wasn’t in a very good place or a stable mind at the time and Bradley came along.’

She continued: ‘I look back at it now, and I see how manipulative his behaviour was at the time. At the time I saw somebody trying to help me out.’

When asked if she knew he was a rapist, she said: ‘I knew he was a sex offender because it’s a sex offenders’ prison.’

But she claims he told him that he would be out in three months and had been framed over the rape and sexual activity with a minor.

Saddington said: ‘When the police read me his sheet of offences I was so shocked and honestly disgusted. He’s a very dangerous man.’

Speaking about how she feels about having sex with a convicted rapist, she said: ‘I don’t believe that he’s innocent at all. It’s disgusting.

‘It’s not something that is not nice to hear, or even think about. I feel disgusted.

‘I’m ashamed of what’s happened.’

During the affair, Saddington smuggled a mobile phone into the Category C prison for her lover so they could communicate.

The mother-of-three saved his name in her mobile under ‘husband to be’, a court heard. Her lawyer said they ‘formed a very intense and infatuated relationship’.

Speaking about their relationship, she said: ‘There were a lot of feelings involved at the time. He would come to me and would say “I’m going to build a house for us, I’ve spoken to my family, I’ve got a plot of land. Your children are going to have a home. 

‘”When I get out in a few months like this is all going to be over like we’re not going to have anything to worry about.”‘

Saddington claims that although the trial heard the pair had sex 30 to 40 times, she can ‘count on my hands how many times we had sex’. 

She alleges that he kept saying he wanted to have a baby with her but she was on the coil – an IUD which prevents pregnancy by releasing copper into the womb.

‘He removed my coil from me,’ she claimed.

Saddington enjoyed boxing before her fall which left her in a wheelchair 

Saddington was given a suspended sentence after pleading guilty to charges of misconduct in a public office because she has been left wheelchair-bound having suffered a fall 

‘After that, we had unprotected sex. I did fall pregnant and I had a miscarriage a few weeks after.’

In March 2023, Trengrove was moved to HMP Channnings Wood in Devon, where Saddington tried to send him intimate photos which staff intercepted.

She was finally snared when she tried to visit him using a fake name on May 26 2023, when she tried to smuggle in a syringe to collect his sperm.

Saddington admits she took a Calpol syringe into prison to ‘inseminate’ herself with Trengrove’s sperm – but claims she was never going to go through with trying to get pregnant that way.

‘Whilst I was sat outside the prison waiting to go in – and he’d been phoning me that morning as well – he was telling me that he wanted a baby with me. If he couldn’t have that, then he was going to kill himself. 

‘He told me to bring a syringe in and was asking me to to inseminate myself with it, which I was absolutely disgusted by when he said it.

‘I took the syringe in just so I could show him I had it so he didn’t do anything to himself. It wasn’t so I could carry out what he planned.’

Saddington was then arrested after prison officers found the syringe. 

Saddington smuggled in an empty Calpol syringe in her bra so she could ‘artificially inseminate’ herself with her lover’s sperm he had wrapped in cling film for her

Speaking of the moment she was caught, she said: ‘I just felt sick to be honest. I didn’t know what to do with myself. 

‘I remember them taking me into the cell and strip searching me.’ 

Saddington met her new partner just two months after being arrested and they tied the knot in November 2024.

‘He knew everything from the start. I told him everything from the start,’ she said.

The couple have just moved into a new house which is more suited to her disability.

Saddington was left wheelchair-bound after suffering a spinal stroke in February 2024 – which is why the judge ruled she should be spared jail.

Saddington began a relationship with Trengrove in around August 2022 with him telling police they had sex 30-40 times in a workshop at the prison 

Saddington became besotted with the sex offender after he was moved to HMP The Verne (pictured) in Portland, Dorset

Judge Jonathan Fuller KC said: ‘Had it not been for the accident that befell Miss Austin-Saddington, the sentence would have been an immediate sentence of imprisonment.’

In a message to other female prison officers falling for inmates, Saddington said: ‘If people are having a tough time, then they need to reach out to somebody else.

‘There is help out there for for officers that need it.

‘What I did I massively regret and I am ashamed of it and disgusted.’   

Sources close to the mother-of-three say she has ‘gotten away’ with not going to jail.

One told MailOnline: ‘She never was a nice person. She’s never going to change. She’s gotten away with it really. I don’t understand it [the fling], especially with three young kids, I don’t understand it at all.’

Emily Cook, defending Saddington (pictured), argued that her client should not be jailed due to her ill-health 

And a landlady, who rented her Weymouth flat out to Saddington between December 2022 and March 2025, said she was ‘not surprised at all’ that the prison guard ended up having a fling with an inmate 

‘I think it’s her character to be honest. There are so many young women having the same – falling in love with inmates. I can’t comprehend it.’ 

The landlady said it was ‘not fair’ that she’d been spared jail for having a fling with a rapist inmate, adding: ‘This is something that’s not humanly possible. My mind would never imagine or comprehend this situation.’ 

Saddington has hailed her new partner, who has ‘loveable c***’ tattooed across his chest, as her ‘rock’ who has got her through her life-changing accident.

The besotted couple have also stayed together during the trial, which started at Poole Magistrates’ Court in August 2024 and came to a close with the sentencing at Bournemouth Crown Court this week.