A British tourist has revealed the filthy conditions inside Thai prisons in a haunting warning to foreign travellers.
The 29-year-old former soldier was held in two police cells and a Bangkok deportation centre for 15 days, charged with overstaying his visa.
‘The only way I can describe it is hell,’ the man, who has not been named, said.
‘There was no ventilation and 130 of us in the room. We could only go out for an hour a week.’
He said the guards would bring in a pot of food and hand out trays to eat off, all washed in cold water on the ‘filthy’ bathroom floor.
‘In all locations there were fire ants and cockroaches. The rubbish wasn’t collected – it was just piled in the corner.’
The man smuggled a phone in with baby wipes to record the shocking footage
Once a week the detainees were taken to a room with an open, barred, roof to walk around for an hour, the 29-year-old former soldier said
People were left in miserable conditions, flailing on the floor. The man said one pregnant woman ‘was crying all the time with her head on the floor’
The 29-year-old arrived in Thailand in April last year and hoped to set up a business and settle there.
But he was arrested in Pattaya in November and taken to court before being detained until December 5.
‘When I was arrested they were very violent,’ he claimed.
‘Two police came up behind me in a public toilet and beat me. They chucked me in a flatbed of a truck and handcuffed me to the side.
‘I was very dazed. I’m sure I had concussion.’
‘They didn’t tell me anything. Luckily there were some Russian guys sharing my cell who spoke Thai so they told me what to expect.
‘One of them lent me the money to pay my court fine straight away otherwise it would have been even worse for me.’
The man spent eight days guarded in a police cell in Pattaya, where he said eight inmates were crowded into a six-by-four foot cell.
He bribed guards to have a few people moved to another cell to allow more space, he said.
He also paid bribes to have food brought in, for cleaning products for the bathroom, and to send messages to his mum in the UK, he said.
Footage reveals the cramped conditions inside a Thai detention centre. The Brit said food was handed out in a large pot and inmates were expected to eat of trays washed on the floor
Few luxuries – including Coca Cola and Pringles – in the cell, revealed in footage taken on a camera smuggled into the detention centre
130 inmates shared four hole-in-the-wall toilets which they cleaned with a bucket of cold water, the man claimed
He said: ‘The cell was tiny. We couldn’t lie down properly and certainly not all at the same time.
‘There was a pregnant girl from Laos who was really struggling. She was crying all the time with her head on the floor. It was horrible.
‘There was another cell of the same size with 13 people in.’
Eventually he was moved to Bangkok to the deportation centre, where he saw the most shocking conditions, he said.
130 inmates shared four hole-in-the-wall toilets which they cleaned with a bucket of cold water, he said.
And they washed by filling tiny bowls from a cold water bucket.
Once a week the detainees were taken to a room with an open, barred, roof to walk around for an hour, he said.
‘There was a guy who sat in one corner selling tiny pot noodles – that was the only thing I’d eat.’
He was there for five days while his mum battled the British embassy to have him flown home, he said.
Eventually, after paying for the flight home plus 500 Baht (£11.94) per night for the five nights in the deportation centre, he was released to fly home.
He was able to take the footage because he smuggled in his phone in a pack of baby wipes, he said.
He said: ‘Once you’re in there you have no contact with anyone and no way to get your money, so unless someone is fighting for you on the outside and knows you’re there you have no hope.
‘I’m very lucky I managed to get my phone in and that my mum was contacting the embassy: otherwise I’d still be there.
‘The deportation centre was the worst thing I’ve seen in my life.
‘I really want to put it all behind me but it’s important for people to know what it’s like: I want people to know what goes on over there.
‘Lots of people let their visas run out and then pay a small fee to renew them, but don’t do it, don’t risk it at all.
‘I don’t want anyone else to become a victim of this.
‘I’m never going back to Thailand.
‘Tourism built and holds up their economy but they just want more. They imprison people then charge them but give them no means to access their money to pay, so they’re basically stuck and it’s a money maker for the authorities.’
The man ultimately bribed guards to have food brought in, for cleaning products for the bathroom, and to send messages to his mum in the UK
The 29-year-old former soldier was held in two police cells and a Bangkok deportation centre for 15 days, charged with overstaying his visa
The man said it was commonplace for people to overstay on Thai visas and he believed officials usually asked for a small fee to renew the documents.
But he was arrested after a disagreement with an ex, he says.
Police checked his passport and found he was a few days late renewing his visa, he said.
The police asked him to pay 50,000 Baht (£1,180) instead of 500 to release him straight away, and he couldn’t pay it, he said.
He was taken to court the next day where he was asked to pay 2,000 Baht for the visa overstay and 500 for the cost of the night he’d been detained.
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
