Prison worker jailed for drugs

A female prison worker has spent her first nights as an inmate after she was convicted of smuggling in drugs for an imprisoned bikie who "sweet-talked" her into an affair.

Jeanine Mary Wyllie, aged in her late 30s, was warned against being wooed into inappropriate relationships by manipulative inmates when she began working as a chef instructor at Greenough Regional Prison.

But by March last year the line between inmate and lover had been blurred, with the prison worker forming a friendship and then starting an affair with Rock Machine outlaw motorcycle gang member Aaron Vince, who was serving time for robbery.

Over the next few months she not only agreed to smuggle in an ounce of cannabis in her bra for the jailed bikie in return for payment, but was also caught red-handed trying to convey cash behind bars to an "unknown associate" of Vince's so the bikie could get an illegal mobile phone.

Police, who had been monitoring her prison calls under a fake name with Vince, arrested her in a prison carpark as she made her way to the entrance with $400. The court was told she had not carried through with an earlier request by Vince to bring him steroids in jail.

Last week, her crimes were deemed so serious that only an immediate jail term would do. The first-time offender has now begun an 18-month stint behind bars.

Defence lawyer Seamus Rafferty told the District Court during sentencing that his vulnerable client was motivated by love, not money.

Mr Rafferty emphasised she had immediately confessed her crimes, was no longer a prison worker by the time of her second offence and was at low risk of reoffending.

But prosecutor Joel Grinceri said it did not matter what motivated Wyllie, she knew her actions were illegal and would help a bikie carry out criminal activity inside the prison system.