DRUGS can fetch up to ten times their street value when smuggled behind bars, a court was told.

Sussex Police drugs expert Stephen Doswell told jurors of the high mark up for in-demand contraband during the trial of Lewes Prison officers Ricky Bridger, Simon Taylor and the partners of inmates yesterday.

The ten defendants all deny trying to smuggle contraband in to the jail in 2014 and 2015, hidden inside Pringles tubes and protein powder tubs, which were paid for by the relatives and girlfriends of prisoners.

Mr Doswell, a former Hastings and Rother police officer for 21 years, told Hove Crown Court: “Prices can fluctuate in prison depending on how much is around that day. It can be up to ten times the value on the street. The feedback I get from officers in Lewes Prison now is that it is four times that amount.”

Mr Doswell is the force’s controlled drugs liaison officer for East Sussex. He visits the prison, confiscating and destroying any seized drugs which are not subject to a police investigation and checks the onsite pharmacy’s supplies.

He said: “I go to Lewes Prison frequently. I oversee the security of the controlled drugs in the pharmacy. I sit on the prison’s drugs strategy board and sit in on security meetings. Every three or four months I visit and collect drugs that are found in the prison which are dealt with [internally] and not with a police investigation.”

Andrew Frymann, prosecuting, said it is difficult to estimate the exact value of the drugs but thousands of pounds worth was seized during the course of the investigation, including “good quality, high purity cocaine”.

Giving evidence on the stand, Mr Doswell said this was 74 per cent pure and had a prison value of £200 per gram.

He said other powder, found in a search which was 53 per cent cocaine and had been slipped underneath a door between the M and L wings in September 2014, would have been sold for around £50 for half a gramme.

Vials of steroids including testosterone found in the orderly’s office next to the prison gym would have sold for £20 each as opposed to £5 each online.

He also said skunk cannabis and spice, the so-called legal high, both sold for four times their usual amount behind bars.

The 99 grammes officers found in two tubes could fetch nearly £4,000 if sold in one gramme “deals”, Mr Doswell added.

The five men and five women are accused of conspiracy to convey prohibited items into the prison.

They are inmates Daniel Sallis, 30, Darren Burdfield, 33, and Simon Penton, 45. Prisoner officers Ricky Bridger, 54, of The Oaks, Heathfield, and Simon Taylor, 28, of West Way, Wick, near Littlehampton. Burdfield's mother Sabrina, 61, of Redwing Close, Wick, inmate girlfriends Sarah Hall, 32, of Barnet Way, Durrington, Worthing, Katie Rudd, 26, of Park Farm Lane, Maresfield, Sheryl Donegan, 30, of Bexhill Road, Woodingdean, and a sister - finance clerk Danielle Henry, 34, of Alfred Road, London.

Taylor and Penton were not present yesterday due to illness.

The trial, expected to last six weeks, continues.