PG TRIPS

Sick lags lace prison guar d’s tea with deadly drug Spice

A PRISON officer was rushed to hospital after lags spiked his tea with the deadly legal high Spice.

The warder collapsed after downing the cuppa laced with a liquid form of the drug, which can make users act like zombies.

He was rushed to hospital suffering from elevated heart rate and breathlessness.

A source said: “It was a nasty business. He recovered but an inquiry is focusing on who targeted him – and why.”

It is believed to be the first time a prison officer’s drink has been spiked by lags.

The attack was at Category B Garth jail, near Preston, Lancs, on May 12.

Glyn Travis, of the prison officers’ association, said: “Jails are awash with legal highs. They are at the heart of increased violence against officers.”

Parole Board chief Nick Hardwick said: “People have died because there is so much money to be made in this trade.”

Last month the Prisons Inspectorate called Garth “very unsafe”. A search at Christmas found 350 litres of homebrew and £400,000 of drugs, including Spice.

Also last month it emerged that 13 staff had been made ill by smoke from lags’ legal high spliffs. In January, Garth prison officer Alison Sharples, 47, was jailed for nine months over an affair with a lag.

Her fling with the gangster was rumbled after she was caught with a syringe full of his semen, taken in a bid to have his baby.