THE British Embassy in Madrid has warned Britons about “actions which are tolerated in the UK [which] are illegal in Spain.”
The advice comes after figures reveal more British citizens are incarcerated in Europe than anywhere else in the world.
The charity, Prisoners Abroad, which provides advice and support for prisoners in foreign jails, said Spain has 115 (10.7 percent) British inmates second only to the USA with 253 (23.5 percent). 1077 citizens are detained across the world in total.
The organisation warns that while European prisons are unlikely to have food or water shortages, the lack of a shared language “only increases the isolation of imprisonment” and Britons are therefore “excluded from work and education opportunities available to local inmates.”
They help to “maintain prisoners’ mental health by sending magazines, books and language-learning materials, and fight social isolation with phone cards and freepost envelopes for those wishing to contact home.”
Some have been less sympathetic.
One expatriate, who wished to remain anonymous, said: “Brits in prison is part of the wider problem. People go to Spain for a booze up and forget themselves. They embarrass the rest of us there who life and work and resent the stereotype of ‘the pissed up English.’”
