Prison guard pleads guilty to relationship with inmate at NSW detention centre

A former prison guard has today pleaded guilty to engaging in a relationship with an inmate and causing a safety risk to the detention centre.

Moss Vale Court today heard Collin Kelleher was employed as a prison warden at the Berrima correctional facility in the NSW southern highlands when he struck up a romantic relationship with 35-year-old inmate Kim Quach this year.

The pair met in the industries section of the jail last November where Kelleher was an overseer.

However, police say it wasn’t until February this year that the pair began engaging in a romantic relationship and wrote love letters to each other.

In one exchange Kelleher even told her how she could manipulate the system to reduce her level of classification at the facility. 

Six letters were found during a routine contraband search in March with his fingerprints on them, leading to his arrest last month.

Quach had been transferred to the prison serving a sentence for manufacturing drugs at the time the relationship began. 

Kelleher, who is married with a small child, was suspended from his position where he had been working since 2016.

At the time of his arrest, he made full admissions to his crime.

Keller’s case was adjourned until August for sentencing.