Nurses 'feared rape by police'

British nurses Lucille McLauchlan and Deborah Parry claimed they were terrified they would be raped by Saudi police if they did not confess to the murder of colleague Yvonne Gilford.

Detailed statements by the women also alleged that during a five-day interrogation they were sexually molested and beaten.

Lucille McLauchlan: diary revelations

Their accounts of their experiences, which they wrote in jail, are revealed in a documentary by BBC1's Panorama, which will be broadcast on Thursday, hours after the nurses' return to Britain.

The Saudi authorities have dismissed claims the women were abused and insist their confessions matched despite being made separately.

They also insist their trial was scrupulously fair.

In her diary about the interrogations, Ms McLauchlan says the head of the investigation, a Major Hammed, "keeps pulling my hair and saying I will co-operate".

Deborah Parry: "struck across throat"

Describing him as smug and vicious, she adds: "He says it is only a matter of time before I write what they want me to write."

She later wrote: "Lieutenant Khalid, a young policeman, keeps asking if I have ever 'had' an Arab.

"I'm positive they are going to rape me. Hammed tells me 'Do you want to start writing or does the lieutenant take his trousers off?"'

'Face slapped'

Deborah Parry, who was being interviewed in a separate room, said she thought she would be gang raped unless she confessed.

"They were rubbing my thighs. I thought I would be raped by them all, I was so frightened ... then the hitting started. Kept on being struck across the throat, my face was slapped, was told that if I didn't start writing, it would be worse.

"I am informed that if I don't co-operate and write statement, the treatment would be even worse than before. Cigarette held so close to my eyes I could feel the heat."

Their claims that their confessions were extracted under duress are supported by two experts who analysed them.

'No money changed hands'

The programme also highlights some inconsistencies with Ms McLauchlan's defence.

She has always denied being in a bank where the Saudis say she was arrested using her dead colleague's cash card.

But in a statement she made to her British lawyer in Saudi, Michael Dark, she apparently says she was in the bank when challenged by police.

However she says she was sending her own money home and not using Yvonne Gilford's cash card.

Ms McLauchlan also says in her diary that the Saudi police offered her freedom if she named Deborah Parry as Yvonne Gilford's killer - which is what she did.

She adds that, with the Saudi police, she convinced Deborah that the only way out was to confess.

A spokeswoman for Panorama said: "No money has changed hands between us and either the nurses or their families."

Saudis - no kangaroo court

But the Saudi ambassador to London insisted the nurses were not victims of a kangaroo court.

Dr Ghazi Algosaibi said even though the women had been pardoned they were still guilty of the "brutal" murder of Yvonne Gilford.

He slammed allegations by lawyers representing the pair that the nurses had been framed for the killing.

Defending the Saudi justice system, he told The Sun: "The trial was fair. There was a victim - and the victim was murdered in the most brutal way."

The ambassador said Prime Minister Tony Blair had been closely involved in the decision to free the nurses after meeting Crown Prince Abdullah in Saudi Arabia last month.

Panorama: The Nurses' Story, will be screened on BBC1 on Thursday night at 10.30pm British Summer Time.