Doherty taking heroin in prison?

Photographs of jailed rock star Pete Doherty have appeared in a tabloid newspaper amid rumours that he is taking heroin in prison.

The Sun claims that, despite being on the substitute drug methadone, heroin is being smuggled into his cell at the detox wing of Wormwood Scrubs.

An inmate is quoted as saying: "We can’t believe how much he's still clucking for it. They put him inside to force him to give up but Pete always has a need to feed his habit."

The 29-year-old Babyshambles singer, who is sharing a cell with a convicted drug dealer, has reportedly been writing IOUs to fellow inmates to pay for the drugs.

Doherty is alleged to have struck up a friendship with an inmate named Ray, who is protecting him from other prisoners after rumours started that the rocker brought drugs in when he was jailed last week for violating probation.

A prison insider claimed: "It wasn’t true but it was enough to make people want to find him and rob him. Ray is making sure this doesn’t happen"

A spokesman for the Prison Service said: "We will act on any intelligence which indicates drugs are being smuggled or abused."