A PRISON teacher who helped a dangerous inmate to escape after

becoming his lover in the jail chapel was yesterday sentenced to five

years' imprisonment.

Mother-of-two Pauline Hardy, 38, had admitted smuggling a gun and

clothing to David McAllister, who was serving 19 years in Hull prison's

special secure unit for armed robbery, arson, and firearms offences.

Grimsby Crown Court had heard that Hardy also had affairs with three

prison officers during her time teaching at the jail.

McAllister, 32, had eight years added to his current sentence

yesterday after pleading guilty to possessing a gun with criminal intent

and a bomb hoax.

The court had been told that McAllister and Hardy, of Chaucer Street,

Hull, had walked out of jail together through 10 security gates without

being challenged. Then, to give him time to escape, she staged a bomb

hoax at a supermarket with a device made out of Smarties tubes, masking

tape, compost, and a calculator.

The dangerous fugitive was recaptured five days later after an armed

raid on a house in Morden, Surrey.

Judge Michael Barker said: ''The escape was carried out with great

ease due to appallingly lax security.''

Ralph Carlin, a 34-year-old married man from Falkirk, who provided the

gun Hardy smuggled to McAllister, was jailed for two-and-a-half years.