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A prison officer has appeared in court charged with performing a sex act on an inmate at the Category C jail where she worked. Rebecca Pinckard, 46, did not enter a plea during a ten-minute hearing today and left court with a jacket pulled over head to try and hide her face. Pinckard of Cambridgeshire, is charged with wilful misconduct in public office between April 9 and July 6 last year. She is said to have been working as a prison officer at HMP Highpoint in Stradishall, Suffolk when she ‘wilfully and without reasonable excuse or justification’ misconducted herself in a way which amounted to ‘an abuse of the public’s trust’. The charge states that she did so ‘by engaging in a relationship’ with a prisoner she was responsible for, sending a card to him and ‘performing oral sex on that prisoner while working as a prison officer.’ Pinckard did not speak as she sat in the main body of the court, rather than inside the glass-fronted dock. But her solicitor, Andrew Cookson, said she was not giving an indication of her plea at the hearing, and stated that there were ‘factual disputes’ in the case against her, although he did not reveal what they were. District Judge Matthew Bone said the case was of such seriousness that it could only be dealt with by the Crown Court. He gave her unconditional bail to appear again for a plea and trial preparation hearing at Cambridge Crown Court on December 3. District Judge Bone told her: ‘Your offence is one that can only be dealt with in the Crown Court, and my job today is to send the case there. ‘If you don’t attend court without a good reason, you will be committing an offence. If you commit any offence on bail, it will be treated more seriously.’ Pinckard, who wore glasses and her hair tied back during the hearing, was earlier pictured arriving at the court with a friend. Her case was linked with a prisoner called Erion Nakdi, 42, who is charged with possessing a mobile phone in Highpoint prison between July 2 and July 6 last year. Nakdi appeared on a video link from Category D HMP Ford prison near Arundel, West Sussex, where he is now held, and pleaded guilty to the charge. It was not disclosed in court whether or not he was the prisoner who had allegedly been in a relationship with Pinckard. Pinckard was charged after an investigation by Eastern Region Special Operations Unit (ERSOU), which represents seven police forces in eastern England. A spokesperson for ERSOU said last July that it had been ‘made aware of an alleged inappropriate relationship between a prison officer and inmate at HMP Highpoint in Suffolk’. The spokesperson confirmed that a woman have been ‘subsequently arrested on suspicion of misconduct in public office’ and taken into police custody to be questioned. HMP Highpoint has had a number of famous prisoners in the past, such as racing legend Lester Piggott, and singers George Michael and Boy George. Other well-known former inmates have included shotgun farmer Tony Martin, who killed a teenage burglar and Amy Winehouse’s ex-husband Blake Fielder-Civil. Moors murderer Myra Hindley was also held at the jail at the time of her death in 2002, when part of it was a womens’ prison. The prison with around 1,300 male inmates is now known as a ‘training and resettlement’ jail. It is on the site of a former RAF base was rated as being overall ‘reasonably good’ in a report after its last unannounced inspection by HM Chief Inspector of Prisons in October, 2023. But the report stated that the ‘regime and provision of education and training and work had deteriorated’ since its last inspection four years earlier. The report added that there was a poor level of ‘purposeful activity’ by inmates and described it as a ‘challenging’ prison to manage and difficult to supervise. But it stated that the prison, which mostly held offenders convicted of violence or drug offences was a ‘competent and well-led establishment that was orderly and safe’. It added: ‘There was a commitment to promoting positive behaviour and making use of the benefits of the extensive estate to help prisoners willing to engage to make progress.’ As a result, it said that many trusted prisoners at the jail were ‘living in near semi-open conditions’. The prison was once jokingly known as Hi-de-Highpoint, comparing its allegedly easy-going regime to the BBC holiday camp sitcom Hi-de-Hi! Building work is currently underway to build three new giant accommodation blocks, which will eventually house another 700 inmates. A spokesperson for the Ministry of Justice refused to comment on the case due to legal proceedings being ongoing.
