Deborah Parry said she was forced to admit to killing Yvonne Gilford because of the police brutality she experienced while in custody.

In an exclusive interview with BBC1's Panorama programme, she said Dharhan police had inflicted "violence and sexual abuse" on her.

"They were trying to burn my eyes with cigarettes; hitting me across the throat," said 39-year-old Parry.

"At the end of the four of five days it was easier to say that we had done it. The embassy had been turned away until we confessed. It was all torture."

Parry spent the past 17 months in prison after being convicted of murder.

At one stage she faced the death sentence. McLauchlan, who was convicted as an accessory to murder, was sentenced to eight years in jail and 500 lashes.

Their sentences were commuted by King Fahd of Saudi Arabia and the two nurses touched down on British soil on Thursday morning.

Parry said she only discovered she was going to released on Tuesday evening, while listening to the BBC World Service.

The next day she was told she would be free in "three to four days" but she refused to raise her hopes.

"I wasn't sure because I know Saudi. Once we were on the aeroplane and off I believed it."

After arriving at Heathrow, she was hastily ushered into a car with a black cloth covering her face, past a scrum of reporters and press photographers.

"All I could see was legs and [I was] being pushed and that."

She worried that if she had fallen over, newspaper photographers would have snapped a picture of her.

"It has been a problem coming back today; facing the newspapers and questions."