Prison guard is jailed after ‘being manipulated’ to smuggle in drugs for her inmate boyfriend
A female prison guard was jailed for 11 months after she was caught twice trying to smuggle drugs to her ‘bad influence’ boyfriend in prison.
Kassan Twitchin, 19, first tried to smuggle cannabis into the private Clarence Correctional Centre, 130km northwest of Sydney, on October 15, 2023.
She had started working there when she was 18, bringing in the drugs for Zachary Ashcroft, with whom she had an “unsavory relationship.”
But Twitchin was caught, her employer Serco fired her and she was charged with possessing a prohibited drug and taking into custody a prohibited drug/plant.
Just over a month later, she was caught trying to smuggle a prescription opioid drug known as “bupestrips” into the prison. Sunday Telegraph reported.
Prison officer Kassan Twitchin (pictured), 19, was jailed after being caught twice trying to smuggle drugs to her ‘bad influence’ inmate boyfriend
Twitchin was re-arrested, charged and pleaded guilty to charges of ‘substitution of listed/scheduled poison and possession/attempt of prescribed controlled substance’.
On January 9, she was sentenced by a local court to a minimum prison term of eleven months.
Because she was a former prison guard, when Twitchin was sent to Silverwater Correctional Center in Sydney, she was held in protective custody and locked alone in her cell for most of the time.
She appealed against her sentence because the conditions of her pre-trial detention were ‘particularly harsh’.
On January 30, her case was heard in the NSW District Court and Judge Robert Newlinds found Twitchin had been manipulated by Ashcroft.
The teenager’s family told the court they “hated” him.
“Mr Ashcroft has been a very bad influence on the perpetrator, to say the least,” Mr Newlinds said.
‘It seems clear enough to me that he had some kind of psychological hold on the perpetrator because of their relationship and convinced her that it was a good idea for her to do what she did.
‘(The drug offenses were committed) in a very simple and, in my view, amateurish manner, with unsuccessful attempts on both occasions to smuggle the drugs into prison.’
Judge Newlinds resentenced Twitchin and ordered her to serve an intensive corrections order in the community for a year and not to contact Ashcroft.
Twitchin, who has an OnlyFans channel, posted about her inmate boyfriend, saying she “can’t wait” for him to be released in a few weeks.
“I love and miss you, my darling,” she said.
“Not being able to talk to you is absolutely heartbreaking and it breaks me.”
Twitchin first tried to smuggle cannabis into the private Clarence Correctional Center (pictured), 130 kilometers northwest of Sydney, on October 15, 2023.