A prisoner hid in an industrial bin and was wheeled out with the rubbish as part of a brazen plot to smuggle drugs into a North East prison, The Northern Echo can reveal.

Two inmates were segregated and disciplined after officers caught their antics on CCTV and prevented them from bringing a haul of prescription drugs into Stockton’s Holme House jail.

Another prisoner told the Echo that the drugs would have been worth hundreds of thousands of pounds on the inside – though the Ministry of Justice said the street worth was far less.

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That prisoner said he had witnessed many attempts to bring contraband into the prison, from packages being left at the perimeter to drones dropping off drugs.

But the most audacious plot he saw was one that began with packages full of contraband being thrown over the fence.

That’s where the rubbish bins would be put out – and sometimes, he claims, a prisoner would be put out with them.

The prisoner would clamber into the unpleasant hiding place and wait until he got wheeled out with the bins.

The Northern Echo: Holme House Prison, Stockton

He’d then snatch the illicit haul and wait patiently inside the bin waiting for a co-conspirator in the jail to get the bin back in again.

“When they realised what was circulating, the screws started checking the CCTV and caught them,” our source told the Echo.

He estimates the haul that ended the plot could have been worth hundreds of thousands of pounds on the inside.

However, a spokeswoman for the Prison Service said the street value of prescription drugs seized was a lot less.

She added: "Everybody that was involved has been caught and action has been taken to increase security."

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Robert Preece, communications manager at the Howard League for Penal Reform, said drugs are a “scourge” in prisons.

He added: “Where there is drug abuse, there is also debt and violence, and we know that the number of confiscations recorded by staff does not tell the full story about the extent of the problem.”

The Prison Service spokeswoman said a recent drop in contraband seized at Holme House meant the prison’s enhanced gate security, x-ray body scanners and extra search patrols were working to stop illicit items that fuel crime behind bars.

She added: “We have invested £100m in airport-style security which has already blocked more than 20,000 attempts to smuggle contraband getting into prisons.”

HMP Holme House’s Drug Crime Reduction Unit won the national Prison Officer of the Year Awards last year for pro-active work in preventing contraband entering the jail.

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