Prison officer given ‘money, gifts and promises’ to report ‘false confession’ for murder defendant
A prison officer was given “money, gifts and promises” to report a “false confession” for a defendant awaiting trial for murder, a court has heard.
Wiktoria Bujko, 30, pleaded guilty to perverting the course of justice for reporting a made-up confession by one of three men awaiting trial for the murder of Iron Miah, who was shot dead on his doorstep.
Mr Miah, 40, was shot in the head on 19 November 2019 in east London and died in hospital two days later.
Mohammed Moshaer Ali, 31, of Dagenham, Antonio Afflick-McLeod, 32, of Ilford, and Aaron Campbell, 32, of Fulham, were found guilty of his murder at the conclusion of a third Old Bailey trial on 9 January.
An earlier trial had to be aborted after Bujko came forward with a false account to police.
Prosecutor Crispin Aylett KC said Ali had put Bujko up to creating an “entirely false account of a confession by Aaron Campbell”.
Ali had “repeatedly shown himself to be an outrageous liar” and rewarded Bujko with “money, gifts and promises”, Mr Aylett said.
She was working at high security HMP Belmarsh in south-east London at the time, where all three defendants were being held on remand.
£500 paid into bank account
On 17 October 2022, shortly before a retrial was due to begin, Bujko made a statement about a conversation she claimed to have overheard the previous weekend in the prison healthcare unit between Campbell and another inmate.
Someone paid £500 into Bujko’s bank account the day after she submitted her witness statement, the court heard.
Her account suggested Campbell and Afflick-McLeod had planned to rob Ali of drugs.
They encountered Mr Miah when Ali sent him to a meeting in his place, she claimed.
An examination of CCTV footage revealed Campbell was not in the healthcare unit when she claimed to have witnessed the exchange.
A jury heard Bujko had known Ali since he was first remanded to HMP Thameside where she had been working.
Bujko, of Marlborough Road, Woolwich, was arrested in December 2022.
Bujko and Ali both pleaded guilty to conspiring to pervert the course of justice.
All defendants will be sentenced at the Old Bailey on 28 February.