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Prison governor given £12k Mercedes by EncroChat boss 'Jesse Pinkman' faces jail

Kerri Pegg was seen as a rising star of the Prison Service but will now face an inevitable custodial sentence

A prison governor who began a relationship with a drug dealer who gave her a £12,000 Mercedes has been found guilty of misconduct in a public office. Kerri Pegg, 42, was seen as a "rising star" of the Prison Service, climbing the career ladder from graduate to governor of HMP Kirkham in Lancashire in six years.


But Preston Crown Court heard Pegg "didn't play by the rules" and began a relationship with a major Liverpool crime figure Anthony Saunderson, helping him secure day release. During the three-week trial a jury heard she was also gifted a £12,000 Mercedes by Saunderson, who went by the pseudonym "Jesse Pinkman" - a meth dealer in US crime drama Breaking Bad - on encrypted messaging network EncroChat.


Messages on Saunderson's phone showed communication with a friend about the new car, which he paid for with dozens of kilos of amphetamines. Pegg’s financial and bank records were also checked and there were no records relating to payments for the Mercedes - and when police raided her home they found Saunderson's DNA on a pair of size 10 Hugo Boss flip flops and a toothbrush.


The jury, which retired to consider its verdicts this morning, returned guilty verdicts on two counts of misconduct in a public office and one count of possession of criminal property after two hours and 43 minutes. Pegg made no reaction as the guilty verdicts were delivered.

Judge Graham Knowles told Pegg a prison term was "inevitable", but bailed the defendant to the court building while a sentencing date is arranged either later on Tuesday or at a later date.

The court heard Pegg became too close to Saunderson, who was coming to the end of a sentence for a multi-million pound cocaine plot, and signed off his temporary release without proper authority. Saunderson was released from prison in May 2019, and in early 2020 was using an Encrochat encrypted mobile phone, used by serious, organised criminals to send messages and secretly communicate.


When the system was cracked by law enforcement agencies it showed Saunderson used both the "Jesse Pinkman" handle and another named after Sopranos actor James Gandolfini. He was involved in an amphetamine production plot while also supplying class A drugs which he has since been convicted of and is now serving a 35-year sentence.

Other messages on his phone also allegedly revealed the "ongoing nature" of his relationship with Pegg. These included a message "car her for ya bird 12 quid or work" and a picture of a black Mercedes coupe. The court heard "12 quid" meant £12,000 and "work" meant drugs.

Retired National Crime Agency detective constable Kevin Byrne told the trial Saunderson agreed to pay 36kg of amphetamines for the car, but at the handover in Manchester only provided 34. Mr Byrne said: "Mr Saunderson had to go and pay the difference in cash. North Wales Police told us that was what took place."


The Mercedes was then registered to Pegg at her home, in Orrell, Wigan, on April 11 2020 and a message to Saunderson from a friend read: "where u ya seedy man u and Peggy out floating orrel in the new whip?" Pegg was arrested at her home on February 11 2021 and this was co-ordinated with North Wales Police and Merseyside Police with the arrests of Saunderson and his drug gang conspirators.

Saunderson’s home in Formby, where he lived with his wife Julie and family, was also searched. The court was told both he and Pegg used "burner" phones to keep in touch but Mr Byrne said there were 80 calls and texts from his phone to hers in the space of a month and no contact the other way.

Even members of his Saunderson's gang grumbled that their boss was spending too much time with Pegg and away from his wife and “work”.


The only other numbers dialled on Saunderson's phone were to sex workers, the court heard. Simon Billington, at the time head of offender management, worked with Pegg at HMP Kirkham – which now has a new female governor in place – and she "shadowed" him for a time.

Mr Billington said: "Kerri became very involved in Mr Saunderson’s ROTL (release on temporary licence) plan. The relationship between Mr Saunderson and Miss Pegg just created problems for me. It was unnecessary. It was not following policy."


Andrew Alty, defending, told the court in his closing speech that Pegg was "green and stupid" but had led an "unblemished life", never having been in trouble with the police before. He added: "You are also entitled to take into account Saunderson and his character, who I suggest is a manipulative and dishonest person who has fooled many people along the way before he ended up back in prison.

"I suggest Kerri Pegg is one of those. Kerri Pegg is naïve, gullible, put prisoners above principles and common sense, has been taken advantage of by a far more sophisticated, odious individual, Anthony Saunderson."


Prosecutor Barbara-Louise Webster however said Pegg lived beyond her means and got into debt, with three county court judgments against her. She was duty-bound to declare them, as these make public officials with money worries vulnerable to corruption, but she did not.

The court heard Saunderson "had the ear" of Pegg and regularly visited her officer with the door closed. Following his release he was contracted by some prisons to run a project called Breaking Alcohol and Drug Dependency (BADD).

Pegg, at the time the regional official co-ordinating drug strategy in six prisons in the north west of England, and "passionate" about the BADD project, thought of Saunderson not as an ex-inmate but a “colleague”, and she said this explained her contact with him as he was working on the project.

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Ms Webster, in her closing speech to the jury, said: "We say they were in a relationship. The mix of DNA, both hers and his on the flip flops and the toothbrush, are very telling. They must have spent considerable time together and she must have suspected that vehicle was from criminal conduct. Kerri Pegg had a promising future until she started to play outside the rules. Anthony Saunderson was her downfall."

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