A PRISON nurse who started a relationship with an inmate has been spared a spell behind bars herself.

A judge told Ashleigh Naylor the case had been a "tragic" love affair, and it should not have happened.

The 30-year-old worked at Holme House Prison in Stockton when she met Paul Lane.

When a colleague agreed to visit her home one night, he found her drunk, and she blurted out her secret, Teesside Crown Court was told.

While he was there, Naylor received a call from 'Paul', but it was from a mobile phone which are illegal for prisoners to have.

The officer then discovered photographs of the couple on Naylor's Facebook page, reported his findings to bosses, and an investigation was launched.

By this time in October last year, Lane was in HMP Kirkham, an open prison in Lancashire, and she had visited him more than 35 times, and he had 400 photographs of her in his cell.

Prosecutor Harry Hadfield said the investigation also revealed Naylor had twice sent codes to her lover so he could top-up the smuggled mobile phone.

Rod Hunt, mitigating, said Lane had been on day-release and could have sorted out his credit himself.

And he told Judge Peter Armstrong that officials from the Offender Management Scheme had agreed that Lane could and should move in with his lover once he was released.

"It is one of those cases where she admitted it straightaway, and says now with hindsight realises the potential harm, but no harm whatsoever took place."

Naylor, of Newlands Road, Saltburn, east Cleveland, admitted aiding and abetting the unauthorised possession of a device in prison, and was given a 12-month custodial sentence, suspended for two years.

Judge Armstrong told her: "This was a genuine relationship with the two of you falling in love, and sometimes it happens without thought to the consequences.

"Prison officers on very rare occasions can be corrupt and can be put under enormous pressure by prisoners.

"It is a somewhat tragic story. You were of good character, doing a worthwhile job and now find yourself in the dock at the crown court."