BRUTAL GUARDS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22328, 31 July 1934, Page 9

BRUTAL GUARDS

MR BICKERTON'S EXPERIENCE BEATEN TILL HE COLLAPSED (United Press Association.) (By Electric Telegraph—Copyright.) LONDON, July 20. Mr Bickerton, in an article in the Manchester Guardian, describing his experiences in Japan, says: "The inhuman treatment I received is part of the normal methods of breaking the spirit of a prisoner. I was confined to a cell 12ft by flft, in which there were never fewer than nine, often fourteen, prisoners. Three were raving mad. I was not allowed baths or exercise during my 24 days' confinement. The brutality of the guards was unimaginable. They stripped and beat the prisoners till their backs were a row of weals." Mr Bickerton describes how, after several days' cross-examination, the detectives, incensed at his refusal to admit their insinuations, trod on his toes and kicked, smacked and punched him, saying: "It is no use being gentle with this beast-" They produced a baseball bat, saying it was"six years since it was used and they were a bit out of practice. They cracked him on,the legs and thighs when he declined to answer questions. .The following day they .again kicked and punched him to help his memory. The treatment was changed after a visit by the British Consul, which made his interrogators uncomfortable, but later, when Mr Bickerton persisted in his refusal to disclose who gave him a copy of a Communist paper, they beat him with a bamboo stick until he collapsed. Later the detectives worked themselves into a frenzy, grabbed Mr Bickerton by the hair, and banged his head against a cupboard. When Mr Bickerton protested to the chief of police, he was told: "Men are not gods. Police officers are men. When prisoners are obstinate officers naturally lose their tempers."