Police officers and their guests ate and drank their way through almost £75,000 of tax-payer funded refreshments in two years.

New statistics released by Sussex Police show the force spent £34,478 on tea, coffee, biscuits, sandwiches and other items for meetings and conferences in 2007/8, and increased the amount to £40,254 in 2008/9.

The figures also showed it spent £14,153 on 151,303 pens over the two years as well as £192,722 to provide 54,079,935 sheets of paper.

The total spent on stationery was £521,798.