Tanya Petrie, a 61-year-old former pharmacy technician at HMP Bristol, has been jailed for six years and three months and struck off the professional register after smuggling drugs worth up to £21,000 into the prison for an inmate she was in an online relationship with. Petrie, who worked for Oxleas NHS Foundation Trust, began a "flirtatious online relationship" with the prisoner and was caught retrieving a package from a wheelie bin near the jail in October 2023, which she intended to pass on to him. The case highlights the risks posed by staff exploiting positions of trust within the prison system, and led to disciplinary action by the General Pharmaceutical Council alongside her criminal conviction.

The package Petrie collected contained two ounces of cocaine that was 80 per cent pure, 77g of Spice paste, and tobacco, with the cocaine alone valued at between £12,500 and £21,000 inside the prison. She told police she had been paid £800 for the delivery and separately admitted smuggling seven SIM cards into the jail for £2,000. Petrie, from Worle in North Somerset, was convicted at Bristol Crown Court of conveying a prohibited article in January 2025 and of conspiracy to convey a Class A drug the following month; a tribunal later ruled her financial difficulties and the relationship had driven her offending, and struck her off for breaching professional integrity and endangering prisoners in her care.