A man is lying on the ground curled in the foetal position and screaming for mercy as blows from a group of Police officers rain down upon him. He is pulled roughly to his feet, and thrust up against a wall with the hand of one officer clasped tightly around his throat. Another officer places the man?s little finger between a pair of pliers and threatens to crush the digit unless he parts with the information they require. In the next room, two other men sit panic-stricken, listening in stony silence to the beating taking place.

?Unless you cooperate, you?re next,? an officer tells them.

This scene is not taken from a movie. Instead, it is drawn from the explosive allegations made by former Dunkley?s Dairy employees Michael Madeiros and Steven Flood, as well as another man, Maurice Stovell, in the Supreme Court proceedings before their drug importation trial.

Madeiros and Flood were convicted of wrongdoing by the nine woman, three man jury yesterday while Stovell was released last week after Puisne Judge Carlisle Greaves ruled he had no case to answer.

In the course of pre-trial arguments which lasted for more than a week, defence counsels Mark Pettingill and Richard Horseman insisted that confession statements extracted by Police on October 24, 25 and 26 in 2003 ? the three days they were in Police custody ? were given involuntarily and could not be submitted to a jury as evidence of their guilt.

All three men, it was alleged, were denied access to a lawyer for several hours after their arrest and were subjected to repeated beatings, threats and unlawful promises in order to uncover the whereabouts of the drugs.

A botched surveillance operation, in which Police lost track of the tainted boxes shipped in a Dunkley?s Dairy container from the United States was the reason behind the narcotics? officers ?desperation? Mr. Pettingill argued, and meant they were prepared ?to do whatever it took to get the boxes back and cover up their incompetence?.

But Crown counsel Paula Tyndale maintained that no such beatings had taken place and the defendants were concocting stories of abuse only because ?they had little else to fall back on?.

But photographs of Mr. Madeiros taken by his wife the day he was released from custody reveal extensive bruising to his face, back, side and buttocks while psychiatrist Sarath Anandagoda testified Mr. Madeiros had suffered from post-traumatic-stress disorder for close to eight months after the ordeal.

Narcotics officers testifying for the Crown denied any assaults had taken place while they also maintained the injuries were sustained after Mr. Madeiros tripped and fell while attempting to escape Police custody during a search of his home at Belmer Drive in Devonshire.

However, this claim was blown out of the water by the Police?s own forensic expert, Dr. Valerie Rao, who insisted the bruising could only have been inflicted by ?repeated? blows to the body. After what he said was a long night of reflection, Mr. Justice Greaves ruled in favour of the defence, discarding all statements, written and oral, from consideration in the trial.

Mr. Justice Greaves also delivered a damning indictment of the Police?s conduct in this matter, and while stopping short of accusing them of lying under oath, he made it abundantly clear he did not entirely accept their version of events.

?This is a case in which almost every step by the Police, created an environment ripe for the picking by the defendants to plausibly allege abuse,? he said.

?Is this not a fertile meadow upon which all the accused of entitled to tread? Is not the question begging, if the credibility of the officers has been so trampled, particularly in the case of Madeiros, that there is a real chance that the same occurred in the case of Flood and Stovell ... except that unlike Madeiros, they are not fortunate enough to be able to produce in support of their allegations a lawyer, a doctor, a forensic expert and a photo album.

?Is it not a case of, as defence counsel has suggested, a pool so poisoned that no safe bucket can be drawn?

?The prosecution,? he concluded, ?has not satisfied me to the standard required that the statements were obtained voluntarily. In the circumstances, I am unable to say with any degree of certainty that the defendants did not suffer violence prior to giving the statements.?