A British tourist has revealed the filthy conditions inside Thai prisons in a disturbing warning to foreign travellers.
The 29-year-old former soldier was held in two police cells and a Bangkok deportation center for 15 days, accused of overstaying his visa.
“The only way I can describe it is hell,” said the man, who has not been named.
‘There was no ventilation and there were 130 of us in the room. We could only go out for one hour a week.
He said the guards brought a pot of food and handed out trays to eat, all washed with cold water on the “dirty” bathroom floor.
‘There were fire ants and cockroaches everywhere. The rubbish was not collected, it was simply piled up in a corner.’
The man smuggled in a phone with wet wipes to record the shocking images.

Once a week, detainees were taken to a room with an open, barred ceiling to walk around for an hour, the 29-year-old former soldier said.

People were left in miserable conditions, thrashing on the ground. The man said a pregnant woman was “crying all the time with her head on the ground.”
The 29-year-old arrived in Thailand in April last year and hoped to set up a business and settle there.
But he was arrested in Pattaya in November and taken to court before being detained until December 5.
“When they arrested me they were very violent,” he said.
‘Two police officers approached me from behind in a public toilet and hit me. They put me in the bed of a truck and handcuffed me to the side.
“I was very dazed. I’m sure I had a concussion.
‘They didn’t tell me anything. Luckily, there were some Russian guys who shared my cell phone and spoke Thai, so they told me what to expect.
“One of them lent me money to pay the court fine immediately, otherwise it would have been even worse for me.”
The man spent eight days in custody in a police cell in Pattaya, where he said eight inmates were crammed into a six-by-four-foot cell.
He bribed guards to move some people to another cell to make more space, he said.
He also paid bribes to get food, bathroom cleaning products and to send messages to his mother in the UK, he said.

Footage reveals overcrowded conditions inside a Thai detention center. The Briton said food was handed out in a large pot and inmates were expected to eat from washed trays on the floor.

Few luxuries, including Coca Cola and Pringles, in the cell, revealed in images taken with a camera smuggled into the detention center.

130 inmates shared four hollow-wall bathrooms that they cleaned with a bucket of cold water, the man said.
He said: ‘The cell was small. We couldn’t go to bed properly, let alone all at the same time.
‘There was a pregnant girl from Laos who was really struggling. I was crying the whole time with my head on the ground. It was horrible.
“There was another cell of the same size with 13 people inside.”
He was eventually transferred to Bangkok, to the deportation center, where he saw the most appalling conditions, he said.
130 inmates shared four bathrooms with holes in the wall that they cleaned with a bucket of cold water, he said.
And they washed by filling small bowls with a bucket of cold water.
Once a week, detainees were taken to a room with an open roof and bars to walk around for an hour, he said.
“There was a guy who sat in the corner selling little noodles; that was the only thing he ate.”
He was there for five days while his mother fought the British embassy to fly him home, he said.
Finally, after paying for his flight home plus 500 baht (£11.94) per night for five nights in the deportation centre, he was released to fly home.
He was able to take the images because he smuggled his phone in a package of baby wipes, he said.
He said: ‘Once you’re there, you have no contact with anyone and no way to get your money, so unless someone is fighting for you on the outside and knows you’re there, you have no hope.
“I was very lucky that I was able to get my phone and that my mother contacted the embassy, otherwise I would still be there.
‘The deportation center was the worst I have ever seen in my life.
‘I really want to put all this behind me, but it’s important that people know what it’s like: I want people to know what happens there.
‘Many people let their visas run out and then pay a small fee to renew them, but don’t do it, don’t risk it at all.
‘I don’t want anyone else to become a victim of this.
“I will never return to Thailand.
‘Tourism built and sustains their economy, but they simply want more. They jail people and then charge them, but they don’t give them the means to access their money to pay, so they’re basically stuck and it’s a source of income for the authorities.’

The man eventually bribed guards to bring him food, bathroom cleaning supplies and send messages to his mother in the UK.

The 29-year-old former soldier was held in two police cells and a Bangkok deportation center for 15 days, accused of overstaying his visa.
The man said it was common for people to overstay their Thai visas and believed officials usually asked for a small fee to renew the documents.
But he was arrested after a disagreement with an ex, he says.
Police checked his passport and discovered that he was a few days late in renewing his visa, he said.
Police asked him to pay 50,000 baht (£1,180) instead of 500 to release him immediately, and he was unable to pay it, he said.
He was taken to court the next day, where he was asked to pay 2,000 baht for the overdue stay and 500 for the cost of the night he had been detained.