Tate Deighton took a risk when she tried to wean her boyfriend off drugs after he had been released from Lewes prison.

She hit him with a crowbar rather than see him go back on to a drug that killed a former partner of hers.

Her boyfriend, who is on remand, says he became addicted at Lewes, a jail which was described as a degrading dungeon in a report last month.

If that is so, it is yet another indictment of a prison where conditions are often worse than Dickensian.

Although visitors noticed improvements in the past year, there has been a problem with drugs and several tragedies involving inmates taking their lives.

The current governor, unlike many of his predecessors, refuses to speak directly to The Argus about the problems.

He ought to be frank and tell Sussex what he is doing to improve conditions.

It's not easy to prevent drugs from getting into prison but it can be done through a rigorous process of searching everyone and everything that goes into the buildings.

One idea of prison is to lock inmates away from habit-forming, dangerous drugs such as heroin rather than seeing previously clean people become addicted to them.

No one living with an ex-prisoner should be forced to take the desperate measures used by Tate Deighton in a bid to keep her boyfriend alive.