Nurse struck off after smuggling phone into jail for drugs gang

A prison nurse who smuggled a mobile phone into jail for a drugs operation has been struck off the nursing register after regulators ruled she had “brought the profession into disrepute”.

Kymberley Finn, 33, was working at HMP Durham on an agency contract when she became involved in what police described as a “complex organised drug conspiracy”.

The scheme unravelled when officers searching a cell at HMP Northumberland in August 2022 discovered a phone containing messages about drugs and also discovered contraband.

Finn, from Boldon Colliery, was one of eight people sentenced in January 2025 over the wider plot to smuggle drugs into HMP Northumberland and HMP Durham. She was not charged with drug offences but admitted conspiracy to convey prohibited articles into prison. She received a nine‑month jail term, suspended for 18 months, along with rehabilitation requirements.

Following this conviction, the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) launched misconduct proceedings. In its January 2026 ruling, the panel said Finn had been “a significant participant in a conspiracy involving several other people to introduce a banned item to a prison” and had knowingly abused her position.

“Taking into account Miss Finn’s significant breach of trust and her own understanding that what she was doing was illegal, the panel found that maintenance of public confidence in the nursing profession required a finding of impairment,” the decision stated. “Members of the public would be appalled if a registered nurse were not found impaired in circumstances where the nurse had abused their position of trust in this way.”

The panel acknowledged Finn’s early guilty plea, her previously good character, and the fact that no patient had been harmed. But it concluded that anything short of striking her off would be “disproportionate to the gravity of the offence” and “insufficient to address public interest concerns”.

Finn has now been removed from the NMC register, barring her from working as a registered nurse, midwife or nursing associate.

The panel concluded that the seriousness of Finn’s behaviour is “at a high level” and her “actions are fundamentally incompatible with her remaining on the register”.