Bath student ‘tortured’ by Belgian police in unprovoked attack

A Bath Spa student was held and beaten by Belgian police on Sunday in what he claims was a violent and unprovoked attack.

Elliott Meredith, 21, was interning in Brussels and had been at a work colleague’s party that night with friends from the UK. As they were getting ready to leave around 2:40am, the police showed up to the party asking what was going on inside.

Elliot, a Graphic Communications third year, told The Tab: “We told them it was a party and all left to walk up to the takeaway leaving the police at the door of the party.

“While in the takeaway, two police cars pulled up outside and three officers ran in to the establishment body tackling Dan to the floor, smashing his head on the floor in the process. They violently kicked and punched him while attaching handcuffs.”

Another friend, Ben, put his arms out ready to be handcuffed and him and Dan were then taken away in police cars. Elliott claims that he and his three other friends then asked why they’d been arrested, during which one officer grabbed Alex’s phone and deleted recordings of the incident.

“I again asked why they’d been arrested and was physically and aggressively pushed back by one officer with both of his hands. Three other officers approached me and tried to manhandle me to the floor, I resisted at first by bracing my body but was forceably pinned up by a doorway and punched with a blow that I thought had broken my nose.

“I blanked out for a second and they smashed my head onto the floor.”

Elliot thought they had broken his nose

Elliot was then handcuffed and held to the floor while they waited for another police car, with one officer kneeling his full weight on his skull for the duration, causing significant bruising and swelling. He claims at no point was he told why he’d been arrested, and he was punched repeatedly on the way to Poste de Police station Saint Gilles.

“As I was dragged from the car I was crying in pain and fear and they told me to shut my mouth.

“I was so scared, I thought they were going to kill me. I was crying and pleading for them to stop but they continued for another few minutes. I was shaking with fear and bleeding from my nose and face.”

Elliott claims he was then searched and bundled into a car to go to the hospital for a check up.

“The same officer kept making me repeat ‘I am a little girl, I am a little girl’, after each time he asked me ‘What are you?'”

Elliot was taken into the hospital where he alleges the officers acted like nothing had happened, and spoke entirely in French to the Doctors despite his request to be spoken to in English.

“The doctor checked over my face, feeling it for breakages and said everything was okay. She brought in a male doctor who asked if I wanted to make a formal complaint about the officers, but given I was still in their custody I simply shook my head.

“There were no notes or case reports, I was simply taken away like the visit had never happened.

“The Senior Officer told me I pushed another officer over who had ended up in hospital.”

He said he thought they were going to kill him

At around 5am, Elliott was finally released once his fingerprints and photographs had been taken. “They laughed at the amount my face had swollen up and asked me why I did what I did. They bullied me into thinking that I had done something wrong, even though I knew I had not done anything.”

The Belgian prosecutor has now opened two investigations – one into the torture allegation – and another into a claim that Elliot assaulted a policeman.

Elliott’s lawyer told the BBC: “I will be making a complaint to the juge d’instruction (magistrate responsible for conducting the investigative hearing that precedes a criminal trial).

“The facts are very serious and I believe they amount to torture.”