A PRISON officer collected an inmate’s semen during a fling behind bars, a court heard.

Preston Crown Court was told gran Alison Sharples, 46, was ‘besotted’ with criminal Marvin Berkeley who was serving time at HMP Garth, in Leyland, where Sharples worked as a support officer.

MORE TOP STORIES:

The pair allegedly struck up an intimate relationship within the confines of the prison walls, with Berkeley allegedly handing Sharples his semen in a bag under his cell door.

Sharples later claimed he told her: “I’d love to have a baby with you,” but denies any improper relationship with the prisoner.

The prosecution said the bizarre find was unearthed during a routine search of Sharples’ handbag on her way into the prison on October 22, 2014.

Custodial manager Mark Jurczyszyn seized a purple medicine syringe with the plunger depressed and traces of semen on the inside.

The court heard DNA analysis matched the sample to Marvin Berkeley, a serving prisoner, or his identical twin brother Michael.

Sharples was questioned and claimed the syringe had been used to give medicine to a baby.

The prosecution said she later changed her story and said Berkeley had handed her the syringe, which she had washed out and put in her bag, planning to dispose of it later.

Camille Morland, prosecuting, said: “The relationship between the prisoner and the defendant was close, covert and sexually intimate, if not necessarily physically so.”

In September 2014, the court was told Sharples met her pal Nicola Ball and confided in her about her relationship with Berkeley.

Miss Morland said: “The defendant seemed besotted by Berkeley and she had been promised by him they would be together when he was released from prison.”

On November 11, police searched Sharpes’ home in Hamilton Road, Chorley, and found a letter from Berkeley hidden in her underwear drawer.

Sharples denies a charge of misconduct in a public office.

Miss Morland said: “It is the prosecution case that the defendant not only had a close friendship with the prisoner Marvin Berkeley but an intimate relationship of the boyfriend/girlfriend kind, albeit within the practical constraints under which it existed.

“It is the prosecution case that the totality of the evidence is that the relationship between the prisoner and the defendant was close, covert and sexually intimate, if not necessarily physically so.

“It is in breach of prison rules and professional conduct, such that public confidence in the system is undermined.”

(PROCEEDING)