TORTURED IN SPANISH INFERNO.

Otautau Standard and Wallace County Chronicle, Volume IX, Issue 425, 1 July 1913, Page 7

TORTURED IN SPANISH INFERNO.

The experiences of an Englishman who was subjected to tortures of a medieval type while m the hands of the Spanish police were described at Leeds Assizes recently.

Arthur Robinson (38), spinner,' of Halifax, was charged with being an absconding bankrupt. He was said to have gone to Spain, taking with him £840 which ought to have been divided amongst his creditors. •**

Prisoner's counsel asked the Chief Constable : Did you see the cell m Spain m which he was kept for five weeks?— Yes. It was a large bare room; the windows were m a bad state, and it was full of draughts. Is it a fact that he was not allowed a change of linen? — Yes. Do you know that the cell communicated directly with a sewer?— l did not know, but it was m an insanitary condition, and there was an abominable smell. When he was finally taken from prison was he marched through the streets with thumbscrews upon his hands? — Yes. The Halifax official receiver said he believed Robinson's stockbrokers encouraged hrm, and persuaded him to go on after he had decided to stop. In 1908 he paid up his losses, which amounted to £10,000. Counsel said the prisoner was a man of good position, whose father had been Mayor of Halifax. Unfortunately, the mania for gambling took possession of him, and he lost heavily. "Your lordship has heard," proceeded counsel, "the conditions under which my client was imprisoned. Upon his removal thumbscrews were put upon him, and he was paraded through the streets, all the time the thumbscrews biting into his flesh. He begs that you will take into account wnat he has suffered. He has been m p. ism here for two months, but it has be 1 1 paradise compared with that Spanish inferno." The Commissioner sentenced the prisoner to four months' imprisonment m the second division.