Prison worker helps inmate escape - because she is in love with him

A prison worker who helped a dangerous inmate escape after falling in love with him has been jailed. Frances King, 26, quit her job at an open prison on the same day that she acted as Daniel Best’s getaway driver.
The court heard she is so in love with the 25-year-old - who was caged for kidnapping his teenage ex-girlfriend - that she has his name tattooed on her body. Jailing King for 12 months Judge David Goodin said: “You didn’t provide him with a file or a ladder or whatever he needed to get out of prison but you provided him with a much-needed set of wheels.
“You took him to a safe haven and he remained at large for some time. “It is sometimes difficult to dictate where the heart should go. You were, however, entirely in control of what you did.” He said disgraced King had “betrayed the trust” of the prison service and the public.
She met Best while working as a clerical assistant at Hollesley Bay Prison near Woodbridge, Suffolk. He had been given an indeterminate sentence in 2007 for kidnapping his ex and holding her in a shed for 30 minutes.
A judge branded him a danger to society as he locked him up for the offence. Best, of Ipswich, Suffolk, was reported missing when he failed to turn up for morning roll-call at 7.50am on July 5 last year.
King picked him up in her car and took him to a hotel room after he strolled out of the notoriously soft prison.
Best was on the run for eight days before he was recaptured and jailed for a further eight months for the escape.
Ian James, defending King, said his client was “vulnerable” and had been exploited by the “sophisticated and manipulative” con. He added: “She had formed a great affection, some might say love for him.”
Ipswich Crown Court heard King, of Melton, Suffolk, has vowed to stand by her inmate lover. She admitted one charge of wilfully neglecting to perform her duty in a public office.