superman’ in intimate letters found in his cell, a tribunal heard.
Tendai Zinyemba allegedly conducted an inappropriate relationship with the inmate ten years her junior at maximum security HMP Long Lartin in Wychavon, Worcestershire.
Zinyemba ended her intimate letters to the killer with ‘mwahh’ like the sound of a passionate kiss, the Nursing and Midwifery Council heard.
The Zimbabwean nurse looked ‘flustered and embarrassed’ when she was found by a colleague giggling with the convict in a room at the category A men’s prison, it was said.
Mental health team leader Kate Bishop told the hearing she noticed a prison guard outside a room on the medical wing on
She looked through the window and saw Zinyemba and the prisoner sat close to one another.
‘The prison guard said that they had been in there for quite a long period of time and they had been giggling and laughing,’ said Ms Bishop.
‘It all seemed very odd.’
Ms Bishop told the hearing that she went upstairs to check what was happening as it was meant to be the time of the day when inmates received medication.
She went back down and knocked on the door.
‘They were in extremely close proximity and leaning into each other,’ said Ms Bishop.
‘They were in each other’s personal space.
‘When I knocked on the door and entered Tendai jumped out of her skin like a cat on a hot tin roof.
‘She was giggling, behaving different, very childlike.’
Ms Bishop told the hearing Zinyemba had not told anyone where she was going and did not document the meeting.
She also said there was no documentation for other meetings between Zinyemba and the prisoner.
Ms Bishop told the hearing: ‘I did not see any kissing but boundaries had been crossed.
‘If you are with someone you are intimate with, they were that close.
‘It is different, it is personal space.
‘It was different from a nurse and a patient.’
Ms Bishop told the hearing the prisoner was 10 years younger than Zinyemba.air Richard Davies asked Ms Bishop if she had read the letters.
‘I know that it said something about him being her superman but I didn’t want to know anymore,’ said Ms Bishop.
‘But it was her handwriting 100%.’
Ms Bishop said: ‘I had concerns that she cherry picked her work load and I believe she was the driving force behind the relationship.
‘I had a suspicion that something was happening because it felt wrong.’
‘This was a growing suspicion that pointed to one thing.’
Ms Bishop had interviewed Zinyemba
for the position before she took time off on maternity leave.
She said Zinyemba was like a different person when she returned and there was a change in her character.
Ms Bishop insisted she had no personal issue with Zinyemba and no score to settle.
She said that the prisoner was serving a life sentence for murder
