Brit’s torture claims

DOCTORS have testified before a Mallorca court that a British man jailed on the island has endured severe beatings in prison. James Langford is serving a three-year sentence in Palma and has accused prison guards of assaulting and torturing him since he was incarcerated in January. 

His claims have been public for months but last Friday the clamour around his case escalated when state doctors informed the court that he had been violently assaulted whilst being held in isolation. 

Their testimony concerned allegations that in June the 30-year-old was intentionally locked outside in the baking heat for hours without water. Guards then reportedly dragged him back to his room, smashed his head against the concrete floor, and beat him so badly he required an emergency brain scan in hospital. 

Doctors told the court that when they inspected him in solitary confinement they found Langford “frightened, half conscious, naked” and with bruises that matched his testimony. 

Last week five other prisoners also testified in support of Langford’s claims, stating that he was regularly subject to vicious beatings. 

A team of psychiatrists were required to force him to leave hospital and return to the prison, while his mother Paula, from Bromley near London, told UK press that he was terrified and believed the guards wanted to kill him.

Langford, formerly a DJ working on Ibiza, was arrested in February 2015 when police found ecstasy pills in his car. He was handed a three-year sentence, with the court rejecting a defence plea to allow him to serve his time in the UK. 

When he was finally jailed in January, Langford was placed in solitary for six weeks at Centre Penitenciari  de Mallorca (pictured) and claims to have been deprived of adequate food and water, stripped naked, and physically humiliated.

In response to the allegations prison authorities said they were taking the appropriate measures necessary to deal with a violent prisoner. But Langford’s case is only the tip of an iceberg. 

There are presently thousands of documented allegations against prison guards and four active investigations.