A biochemist sprinted for the sink after just a teaspoon of spiked vindaloo, a murder trial heard.

Experts were explaining how they laced curries with poisonous doses of aspirin and painkillers to see how they tasted.

Pathologist Dr Alan Anscombe and Dr David Williams, a consultant biochemist in Sunderland, were called to give evidence on behalf of Dena Thompson, who is accused of murdering her ex-husband, Julian Webb.

Mr Webb, who died on his 31st birthday in 1994 at the couple's home in Douglas Close, Yapton, loved hot curry dishes which boosted his machismo, the court has heard.

Thompson, 43, denies murdering Webb with a cocktail of prescription drugs and steroids, allegedly served in a curry.

However, Dr Williams described a vindaloo mixed with aspirin and dothiepin as "inedible".

He said he went to his local curry house in Sunderland with a GP and his wife and split a portion of vindaloo into three.

One portion was untouched, one spiked with ten crushed aspirin tablets and one with the contents of ten painkilling dothiepin capsules.

Of the dothiepin mixture, he said: "We all took a mouthful and the rush to the sink to remove it from the mouth was dramatic. It was quite inedible."

But, under cross-examination, he conceded: "Who knows what an unsuspecting person may or may not detect?"

The trial continues.