A PRISON doctor has walked out of her job after exchanging intimate letters with a Teesside armed raider.

Richard Bains, 26, was sentenced to ten years for robbing a Teesside bookies in 1993.

He was at Winchester Jail when he met married GP Sonia Dobbie and had been transferred there because he had been involved with a female drama teacher at his previous jail. Bains, of Newport, Gwent, met Dr Dobbie, 33, when he needed physiotherapy for a knee injury.

Dr Dobbie was working her notice at Winchester Jail when governor Rick Smalley saw the letters written by Bains from prisons at Dorchester and Dartmoor.

Bains is due to be released from prison in February.

A spokesman for the Prison Service said: "An investigation has taken place into allegations that a prison doctor at HMP Winchester has written to a prisoner. The member of staff admitted this but an inquiry found there had been no security breach. The member of staff had resigned before these allegations came to light and the member of staff is no longer working at the prison. The governor of Winchester had written to them to reprimand them for the actions."