'Phone sex' prison officer 'feared she'd be killed if she didn't take calls'
An ex-prison officer accused of having phone sex with an inmate broke down in tears in court as she claimed the prisoner threatened to kill her if he found she had another partner.
Ruth Shmylo is on trial accused of misconduct in a public office after she allegedly had an inappropriate relationship with convicted criminal Harri Pullen while he was serving a sentence at HMP Parc in Bridgend, Wales. The alleged misconduct relates to her not reporting his advances, the court claims. Shmylo, 26, of Pontypridd, denies having a relationship with a serving prisoner.
Instead, prosecutors allege Shmylo, 26, from Pontypridd, entertained Pullen's flirting and even engaged in an intimate conversation on the phone with him. Shmylo told the trial at Cardiff crown court on Monday how Pullen was "really boisterous" and could be "intimidating when you stood in front of him".
"He had a presence on the wing and he was very erratic," she said. "He was banging the door shouting saying he wanted to speak to the governor and staff. He was a handle should we say.” She claimed he "made threats to harm her", Wales Online reports, and that she believed if she had a partner, he 'would kill me and them'.
She said Pullen passed on his number to her on a piece of paper, and later called her on her personal phone. The defendant said: “I said ‘Why are you doing this?’ I was in a panic, he said ‘I just need to speak to you’.... He said ‘I’ve got you now’... That I had no choice because I had answered the phone and if I told anyone he knows it’s going to be me.”
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Harri Pullen (South Wales Police)According to Shmylo, Pullen would phone her "continuously" and threaten other inmates if she didn't answer. “He made threats to actually harm me," she said. "If I had a partner he would kill me and them, threatened to come to my house with my family, threatened to hot water my brother in law, to harm my cats, to come to my house.”
Shmylo denied any sexual interaction with Pullen in the prison, and told defence barrister Clare Wilks she didn't report what was going on because "there was no one for me to tell". In a previous hearing, it was heard Shmylo had faced animosity from colleagues after blowing the whistle on a plan to stitch up another inmate.
"Staff had no regard for my welfare whatsoever," she said. "It would have got back to me. There was no safe option for me to report what he had done.”
HMP Parc's head of security Daniel Hayman previously told the court Shmylo had training on how to avoid conditioning, manipulation and exploitation at the hands of inmates. He added: “They may attempt to corner staff in a manner that might force them to be separated from their colleagues, to force them to do something they might not otherwise do.
A meeting was conducted with the defendant in January 2021, after a number of reports had been made about her by inmates and prison staff, in regards to her alleged relationship with Pullen. On April 16, 2021, Shmylo failed to pass her probationary period and the decision was made by Mr Hayman to terminate her employment.
The trial continues.
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