BAD GIRLS
The story of the British mother of five who spent more than a year in a Spanish prison on a murder charge, which has since been dropped, represents the ultimate Costa del Sol nightmare. Anne-Marie Monteith, 48 and hailing from Monkseaton in Whitley Bay, was first arrested in March 2002. She claims she was chained to her bed for hours on end after refusing the sexual advances of two female prison officers at the jail in the town of Alhaurin de la Torre, just 20 miles north of Malaga. ‘What I’ve just been through makes Bad Girls look like a holiday camp,’ she explained. ‘I was humiliated and treated no better than an animal. It was a disgusting, horrible nightmare that has damaged me for life.
‘Being chained to the bed was the worst thing of all. These two particular members of staff accused me of insolence when I refused to sleep with one of them. Then they came into my cell late one night and handcuffed me to the bed. They did that for the following ten days each night. When I asked why, they said it was for my own protection.’
Inside the prison where Anne-Marie was held were just a hundred females inmates and well over a thousand men. ‘They were in the other half of the prison and we had little direct contact with the men, apart from drama classes. But just the fact they were so close made things a bit tricky.’
Anne-Marie says that drama classes she attended inside the prison ‘were awful, because the men were allowed to sit next to us and some of them would try and molest us under the tables. Some women inmates were happy to allow the men to fondle them, but I was disgusted. I just don’t understand why they were allowed to do it. The staff spent the whole time smirking at us.’
Anne-Marie is convinced she was discriminated against because she was English. ‘They thought I was an easy lay because that’s what they think of English women. It was terrifying. There were many hardened criminals in there for robbery and drugs, and a lot of sick perverts. The prison was only fifteen years old but it was in desperate need of a revamp. It was disgusting. I wouldn’t have put an animal in there. The toilets were broken, cracked and unfit for human use, and excrement was spread across the floor. The walls of the cell were peeling and cracked and the smell was disgusting throughout the prison.’
She claims she only took a shower twice throughout her year in the prison because ‘you had to watch your clothes in case any of the inmates stole them. Also, I felt that someone might try and force me to have sex. And the water was a disgusting brown colour.’
Back in the main part of the prison things were no better. ‘Sometimes squads of male prison officers would come into our unit to stop a fight, and they were always very violent. Some of the women inmates were beaten for just waving at the male inmates in the next-door jail.’
Anne-Marie says she was stunned by the open nature of the sexual relations between women inmates and sometimes even the staff. ‘Many of the women inmates had sex with each other in their cells and they were constantly kissing and caressing each other in the refectory and TV areas. It was very offensive because of the way they defiantly did it in front of you, but none of the staff ever stopped them. In fact, three or four women staff members were having open relationships with female inmates. There was also a woman who was close to death with AIDS who walked around trying to pick fights with us. It was awful.’
There were regular scuffles between female inmates. ‘They’d suddenly go for each other’s throats. There were fist fights, catfights everything, you name it. They’d tear each other’s hair out and many of the inmates urged them on, getting some sick and twisted kick out of it all.’
But the most humiliating moment came when Anne-Marie was allowed a conjugal visit from her husband Richard. ‘I was allowed to see him through a glass panel twice a month for an hour, but then they permitted us a conjugal visit. We went in the room. It was bare with tiles on the walls, a little cubicle to wash in, a toilet and nothing else. No curtains on the window. The chipboard bed creaked so badly that in the end we had to stop. I could hear the prison staff sniggering just outside the door. It was so inhibiting. I told my husband I could never do it again because it was so humiliating.’
Anne-Marie also believes prison staff deliberately called her by her surname even though most other inmates were referred to by their Christian name. ‘It was their way of further humiliating me because I was the only English woman in the prison.’
Random strip-searches convinced Anne-Marie she was being completely and utterly victimised. ‘They would stop me in the middle of the recreation area and force me to drop my pants in front of everyone. It was disgusting. They claimed they were looking for drugs but I think they just did it for sick, twisted and perverted reasons. It was horrible.’
Anne-Marie insists she never once took any drugs throughout her stay in the prison. ‘Drugs got in so easily. Women had them in their knickers. Others exchanged them through kisses and hand squeezing. There were even certain pushers inside the prison trying to force you to buy the drugs from them. Many women inmates would go down to the showers, crush the drugs into cigarettes and then get high. They even used tablets from the medical wing. Anything to get high.’
She claims she was locked in solitary confinement inside her cell for calling an officer ‘stupid’. ‘I wasn’t allowed out. I used the toilet and wash-basin and my meals were brought to the cell, all because I called one of the women officers who was harassing me “stupid”.’
Anne-Marie was finally released from prison in March 2003 after police found clear evidence that she had not been involved in the murder of a wealthy British housewife called Diana Dyson on the Costa del Sol in December 2001. Anne-Marie’s husband Richard remains in a Spanish jail awaiting trial for the murder, but his case is not expected to be heard for at least another year. ‘I cannot believe that it took so long to release me. Now I have to battle to try and get Richard released because he is as innocent as I am.’
Anne-Marie claims that the real killer of elderly Mrs Dyson is another Brit who has now returned to the north-east of England. ‘But the Spanish police are doing nothing to try and extradite this man. I am so worried about my husband. He is completely innocent.’