A NSW corrections officer who fell pregnant to an inmate texted a friend: “I’m an idiot” before she was busted attempting to smuggle drugs into prison for her secret lover, according to court documents.
Amber Clavell, 25 appeared in Penrith’s District Court on Wednesday as she avoided jail time after pleading guilty to a string of offenses relating to her affair with inmate Mark Kennedy at Geoffrey Pearce Correctional Centre in north western Sydney.
She was caught smuggling 33 grams of methamphetamine – which had been secreted in her bra – into the prison at the request of Kennedy, a convicted armed robber.
At the time she began an intimate relationship with Kennedy, Clavell was working in the prison’s Intensive Drug and Alcohol Treatment Program, according to a statement of agreed facts tendered to the court.
The Corrective Services Investigation Unit began looking into Clavell in early 2024 after it was discovered she had accessed the secure NSW Correctives Services system out of hours, as well as inmates’ phone calls using the Offender Telephone System.
She was confronted by officers at work on April 23, initially telling them that sometimes she took work home.
While being interviewed, she admitted that she was carrying two balloons full of drugs in her bra, which weighed 33 grams.
During questioning, she denied knowing Kennedy.
But detectives discovered a “love letter’ to Kennedy which she had penned on her phone and referenced “when you get out”.
She then admitted to having shared intimate images with him via Snapchat.
Kennedy was using an illegal phone to contact her, according to court documents.
In text conversations with a friend and fellow corrective services worker, Jessica Elguindy, she discussed falling pregnant to Kennedy.
“I’m an idiot,” she said in the texts, contained in court documents.
Clavell: “I know but I’m f***ing dumb.”
Elguindy: “Don’t say that because your not.”
Clavell: “I literally am.”
Elguindy: “No your (sic) not, you are such a smart girl with such a bright future ahead, you’ve just hit a wall & we will get through it.”
Clavell pleaded guilty to supplying a prohibited drug, misconduct in public office and accessing restricted data.
In handing down his sentence, Magistrate Stephen Corry also took into account charges of engaging in a relationship with an inmate, bringing a prohibited drug/plant into a place of detention and unlawfully delivering to an inmate.
And on Wednesday she was sentenced to a two-year, three-month intensive corrections order, to be served in the community.
