A JUDGE has warned of the dangers of drugs being taken into HMP Berwyn prison in Wrexham.

Judge Niclas Parry jailed an inmate who admitted a charge of arranging for tablets worth about £7,500 to be taken into the jail.

The judge, sitting at Mold Crown Court, said: “Drugs in prison undermine everything that prison is about.”

They caused disorder and bullying and affected rehabilitation.

“Sadly this occurred at a flagship prison where rehabilitation was the vision,” he said.

“It appears things may be going array and drugs is the reason for that.”

Judge Parry told David Hunt that he would be sentenced on the basis of his plea that the drugs were for his own use.

But he was in a confined space and if they had fallen into the wrong hands there was an obvious possibility that they would have contributed to misery and disorder in the prison.

Hunt, 42, of Newport in South Wales, received a consecutive eight month to the sentence he is already serving.

The judge said his case was aggravated by the fact that he had previous convictions for the supply of class A drugs.

Barrister Paulinus Barnes, prosecuting, said a visitor and Hunt were caught with 150 class C tablets worth £7,500 hidden up their bottoms on New Year's Eve.

The visitor, Phillip Jones, had driven from South Wales on December 31, 2017, but officers were monitoring what they were up to and caught each of them with 75 tablets of Buprenorphine.

Intelligence had been received about drugs being taken into prison and the two men were watched.

"At one point Jones moved his legs apart and something dropped on the floor which he retrieved."

Officers moved in and searched the two men and Mr Barnes said Hunt who had been seen with his hands down his trousers was found to have a packet in his anus.

There was DNA which matched both his and Jones, who was also strip searched at the police station and found to have the same amount of drugs.

Investigations showed that there had been telephone contact between the two in the days leading up to their arrest.

Estimates put the value of the tablets at about £50 each, said Mr Barnes, who highlighted the difficulties drugs caused in prison.

He said that undermined the ultimate aim of rehabilitation and caused difficulties when prisoners got into debt with each other with bullying and the creation of a gang culture.

It was the prosecution case that whatever the defendant’s basis of plea the fact was that whether they were kept in his cell or on his person, there was a risk that some could be taken by others.

Duncan Bould, defending, said Hunt had previously been addicted to class A drugs.

The class C drugs were to be used to help wean himself off hard drugs while he was serving an extended sentence.

He was not due to be released until 2021 and it was against that background that the arrangement was made.

It was a bid to “take control of his own circumstances” but he accepted that whatever his own intentions there was a potential that they would find their way into the wrong hands.

Jones, 50, of Chepstow Road, Cwmparc, Treorchy, South Wales, previously pleaded guilty to two counts of possession with intent to supply and supplying drugs and was jailed for 10 months.

Buprenorphine - also called Subutex - is a mixed opiate used to treat opioid addiction and chronic pain.