AT THE HEART OF THE ROAD TRANSPORT INDUSTRY.

Call our Sales Team on 0208 912 2120

French prisons cruel says wife

13th June 2002, Page 14
13th June 2002
Page 14
Page 14, 13th June 2002 — French prisons cruel says wife
Close
Noticed an error?
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.

Which of the following most accurately describes the problem?

• The wife of a British lorry driver who is in a French jail has delivered a scathing attack on the Foreign Office for failing to press for better conditions for British nationals in French prisons.

Last September Isabel Logan's husband Jeffrey started a six-year sentence in a prison near Lille for drug smuggling. She says he has to cope with rats, filth, inadequate meals, poor heating, dirty clothes and pools of urine in the exercise yard.

Another truck driver, Andrew Beaumont, who is being held in the same prison, was handcuffed to the wall with nothing to eat or drink for more than two days, according to the response to a Parliamentary question.

Truck drivers account for 26 out of 65 of the British remand prisoners in France; 19 of the 105 convicted prisoners held in France are in the industry.

Mrs Logan's complaint has been supported by her local MP, David Stewart, but she doesn't believe the Foreign Office has taken her seriously: "The Foreign Office has been no help at all. Many people do nothing at all as the Foreign Office tells them not to speak to the press because it may have an effect on sentencing and remissions so they are scared to speak out. But it is the only way to raise the issue.

From start to finish it is like nothing you would ever encounter in this country. It's just unbelievable," she says.