Warden probed over sex claim

A PRISON officer in England has been suspended over claims she had sex with a murderer.

She is accused of having an affair with Leigh Thornhill, who was jailed after he brutally killed a mother-of-two and violently attacked another woman on the same night.

An internal inquiry has been launched at the prison in Wakefield, West Yorkshire.

A Prison Service spokesman said: “A member of staff from HMP Wakefield has been suspended pending the outcome of an internal investigation.”

Former soldier Thornhill, 27, from West Croydon, south London, murdered 38-year-old Corinne Bailey with a piece of wood on August 16, 2003.

Thornhill had attacked another woman just two hours earlier. Julie Francis, 39, passed out during the attack, but when she regained consciousness she screamed and he ran away.

The Old Bailey heard he had been out drinking at a pub and nightclub before the attacks.

Mr Justice Astill jailed Thornhill — who was then 19 — for life for the murder, with eight years concurrent for grievous bodily harm.