Two prison officers have admitted smuggling banned items into a jail but said they were not part of a wider conspiracy.

Ricky Bridger, 54, of The Oaks, Heathfield, said he had been “under pressure” to bring in a package to Category C Lewes Prison where he worked.

Bridger was caught with a tube containing a mobile phone and cocaine in his car boot but said in his defence that he had changed his mind about bringing it into the jail.

Fellow Lewes officer Simon Taylor, 28, of West Way, Wick, freely admitted taking the then legal high spice into the jail but claimed he was not part of a wider plot involving several inmates, their girlfriends and family members to smuggle phones and drugs into the prison.

Tayo Adebayo, defending Bridger, told Hove Crown Court yesterday: “He was being pestered, harassed, badgered to join in this plot to smuggle items.”

Mr Adebayotold the jury that at the time of the plot Lewes Prison was suffering from seven per cent understaffing.

“It was a difficult balance between getting prisoners through their period of imprisonment and also keeping orderly prison regime.

“Prison officers spent a lot of time with prisoners and it was a simple fact that prisoners would approach prison officers.

“The Crown case is that this was one big conspiracy. The case against Ricky Bridger is he was in it from the beginning.

“But Mr Bridger has agreed to bringing in prohibited items. The real issue is what was the agreement?

“This defendant had been previously stopped four times and nothing of interest found.

“His evidence was that the items found in the boot of his car on June 26 had been there since June 6. He went to work at Lewes, in rest days he did building work and four days he took off sick. He feigned sickness because he was scared.

“He was changing his mind about going through with it.

“That mitigates against him being part of some well established plan. Those behind this plot wanted the package inside the prison as soon as possible.

“If Mr Bridger is deeply involved then the last thing he would want to do is have the package in his possession longer an necessary.”

Mr Adebayo added that there was no forensic evidence linking Bridger to a Pringles tube containing drugs found in the prison gym or any of the other contraband found in the jail.

He added: “The prosecution question was whether a prison officer was corrupt or corrupted. He was pressured over a number of months to carry out what he intended to do and he finally succumbed.”

Ross Talbott, defending Taylor, said: “Simon Taylor doesn’t claim to be blameless, he never has done.

“He doesn’t ask for sympathy or pity. He doesn’t say he was harassed into this. He has accepted he has done something wrong. He has accepted that he has broken the law but what he hasn’t done is committed this offence.”

Mr Talbott told the jury there was no evidence to suggest Taylor had been involved in smuggling any other items into the prison.

The jury will have to find that each of the defendants was involved in a plot to smuggle a whole range of prohibited items into the jail to convict them.

Mr Talbot said the similarities between Bridger and Taylor were limited to the fact they worked at the same place and wore the same uniform.

Mr Talbot said Taylor’s inexperience in smuggling was demonstrated by the fact he forgot to lock inmate Darren Burdfield’s cell door after making the delivery of spice hidden inside a protein powder tub. He said: “He had some forged paperwork and he was so nervous he dropped it. He forgot to close the door of the cell. If that wasn’t an indication that it was his first time, to drop forged paperwork and forget to lock an inmate in his cell, I don’t know what it.”

Bridger, Taylor and eight others deny conspiracy to smuggled banned items into prison. The trial continues.

‘HE’S A CRIMINAL AND SMUGGLER BUT NOT A PLOTTER’

HE’S a criminal who smuggles spice into prison but don’t hold that against him, a prisoner’s defence team pleaded with a jury.

Darren Burdfield was an inmate at Lewes Prison with a long list of previous convictions but his legal team said the jury trying him for his part in a plot to smuggle banned items into the jail should not hold that against him.

Pierce Power, representing Burdfield said: “Darren Burdfield is a criminal. Of that there is no doubt.

“The Crown has told you that time and time again. To suggest that at any time he portrayed himself as anything else is ridiculous.”

Mr Power said Burdfield could not have been a ringleader in the smuggling plot along with Simon Khalil and Dorian Henry who have already pleaded, because he was not transferred to Lewes from Ford until after the plot was well under way.

He said: “The case against him is that this all started in the summer of 2015 when Darren Burdfield was in Ford. He did not arrive in Lewes until later that summer.

“Do drug dealers hand out part shares of business? Why would they? What’s in it for Mr Khalil and Mr Henry.”

Mr Power said Burdfield had consistently admitted taking spice into the jail but said that did not link him to the wider conspiracy to take other drugs such as cocaine and mobile phones in and should not be used to convict him in this trial.

A wheeler dealer prisoner sold spice to other inmates inside Lewes Prison as well as selling it to people outside the jail but claimed he had no part in trying to smuggle it in.

Daniel Sallis, of Bexhill Road, Woodingdean, admitted selling the psychoactive drug to Dorian Henry but said he had no idea it was intended for the jail.

Richard Hutchins defending Sallis said: “He did not bring things in because the commodities were already there.

Burdfield and Sallis both deny conspiracy to convey prohibited items into HMP Lewes.

The trial continues.