Lags asked for prison governor by name – one even had it tattooed on his face (2025)

Kerri Pegg, 42, was liked so much by inmates that one even had her name tattooed on their face but her colleagues were not as fond of her and some could see her downfall coming

Kerri Pegg was a "rising star" of the Prison Service who quickly rose to the rank of governor in a matter of years after starting out as a graduate entrant. The 42-year-old's career was going extremely well until she met her downfall – Liverpool gangland heavyweight Anthony Saunderson.

Pegg was found guilty of having a relationship with the career criminal and accepting a Mercedes from him as a gift in a three-week trial that concluded this week. A date for her sentence hearing has not been announced yet.

The crime boss is serving 35 years behind bars for his part in a large-scale amphetamine drug plot hatched on messaging platform EncroChat. Conversations on his encrypted phone, viewed by law enforcement after the network was hacked in the early months of 2020, not only proved to be his downfall, but also provided the evidence that showed he and Pegg were engaged in an illicit relationship, reports the Liverpool Echo.

Pegg, who was said to "not play by the rules that everybody else had to follow", began the relationship with Saunderson during their time together at HMP Kirkham. It continued to blossom after Pegg approved a temporary temporary licence release for Saunderson without the approved authority, before the dealer bought her a car paid for with dozens of kilos of drugs.

However, Pegg's behaviour had repeatedly been cause for concern for the jail's upper echelons, with claims she had been inappropriately close with prisoners and flaunted established rules. But sources have told the ECHO that Pegg had a history of concerning behaviour and "the writing was on the wall from the start".

Pegg was convicted this week of misconduct in a public office and will return on Monday to be sentenced. She can expect an inevitable immediate custodial sentence. This is the story of the prison governor who should have known better and the gangland boss who exploited her.

'Writing was on the wall'

Pegg, originally from Bramhall in Stockport, had previously worked in the Probation Service for eight years. She was married at 26 but divorced four years later and switched to the Prison Service for a new challenge.

Pegg joined in 2012 as a graduate entrant, working her way up at prisons including Risley, Liverpool and Styal and by April 2018 she was working as band eight governor at HMP Kirkham, which means she was head of a function. The keen gym-goer had a love of the finer things in life, dressing in designer clothes and Jimmy Choo shoes while clutching luxury handbags.

But Pegg, who also spent thousands on breast enhancement surgery, was deep in debt and had not declared county court judgments. This amounted to misconduct in a public office as debts make officials vulnerable to corruption. Her four credit cards were "maxed out" and she had just 6p in her savings account.

And despite her apparent work successes, there were concerns from her colleagues about her conduct with inmates. One experienced prison officer who worked alongside her at HMP Liverpool told the ECHO: "You could see from a mile off that she was extremely naïve and an accident waiting to happen."

The officer said: "I knew Kerri well. Honestly I'm not surprised this has happened. You could see from a mile off. A few years back we heard she'd been arrested and was apparently with a drug dealer, but then it all went quiet.

"There were quite a few things from her time at Walton that stood out. She started off very pro-con, wanting to help them as much as possible - which isn't necessarily a bad thing - but she'd completely undermine wing staff. She would promise some of the more difficult prisoners rewards like vapes if they behaved, which just made things harder for everyone else.

"She even supported a prisoner in an adjudication after they had assaulted a member of staff. It got to the point where prisoners would ask for her specifically because they knew she would sort something out for them. To say she was well-liked by them is an understatement - one even tattooed her name across his face."

The officer added: "She got overly friendly with the cons and was pulled up by senior officers more than once for her behaviour and appearance on the wings. We had to remind her that some of the lads in there wouldn't think twice about pulling her into a cell, but she didn't seem to care - after all, she was a governor and we were just officers, so what did we know?"

A former officer, who had spells at two of the same prisons as Pegg, added there had been "rumours" about Pegg among staff.

The prison governor and the drug dealer

Early warning signs regarding Pegg's behaviour were clearly missed - and during her time at HMP Kirkham more concerns were raised about her inappropriate contact with prisoners. She was regularly spoken to and warned about her conduct, but continued nonetheless.

One of the prisoners she was close to was Anthony Saunderson, who had been transferred to the open prison in June 2017 and at the time of his contact with Pegg was reaching the end of a sentence for drugs offences. Saunderson had at one time been one of Merseyside's most wanted fugitives and been part of a team put together to recover 400kg of high purity cocaine which had been imported in shipments of corned beef from Argentina with a street value of nearly £20m.

Saunderson, who at the time was living in Kirkby, was not part of the original importation but had been entrusted by the smugglers to track down the cocaine after a National Crime Agency (NCA) investigation replaced the packages with house bricks. He was handed a 10 year sentence for conspiracy to supply cocaine and money laundering in May 2014.

Pegg and Saunderson began to spent a lot of time together in her office, often with the door closed. Graeme Bristow, the prison's duty governor who had been appointed as her mentor, warned her about her behaviour but she continued, claiming there were "cultural issues" at the jail and her approach was "progressive and hands-on".

A particular concern was her continued involvement in Saunderson's applications to take part in activities outside of the prison. She was deemed such a risk to the integrity of the prison and other staff members that in July 2018 she was temporarily removed to a "back office" function to limit her contact. She was moved back to her original role the following month and in October of the same year approved Saunderson's request to be released on temporary licence.

Requests of this nature are routine in an open prison, but rules specify requests should be submitted to the senior member of staff, namely the duty governor, who would then either approve or decline it. On the day in question Mr Bristow had a number of such requests, but not one for Saunderson.

It was only two days later that the duty governor became aware of it. Pegg was moved from HMP Kirkham to another prison on October 12 2018 and Saunderson was released in May of the following year. The pair's story picked up again in early 2020 after European law enforcement gained access to the EncroChat system.

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