FURY greeted the 10-year sentence handed down to American dancer Richard Hinds, convicted last month of murdering Nicola Furlong.

However, a brutal regime awaits him in the notorious Japanese prison where foreign inmates are held, with sources saying it makes Ireland's jails look like holiday camps. Even Amnesty International has criticised how prisoners are treated in Japan's jails, especially at the high-security prison at Fuchu, just out-side Tokyo.

Punish One south county Dublin man, 'John', who spent three years in the military-style lock-up for drug smuggling offences, this week told the Sunday World what's in store for Hinds. "When they punish you your wrists are cuffed to a belt and you wear shorts with a hole in it so you can go to the toilet, but you can't clean yourself," he said. "The food is pushed in through the door and you basically have to get down on your hands and knees and eat it like a dog," he told the Sunday World. "I spent two months extra in the prison for looking to the left one day. It's impos-sible not to break the rules if they want to catch you," he explained. Even at night, if a prisoner kicked the door or made noise out of frustration, they could be subdued with a stun gun and ., carried to the 'investigation block'. \ Inmates move and work in silence under strict supervision.

They are regularly strip-searched and never get to mix with each other. "I spent three years on the top of three landings, but in all that time I never ever seen the bloke in the cell next door to me," John said. For foreigners, the extreme disci-pline is a shock to the system. Everything from how to walk, sit and where to place things in a cell are detailed in a long list of rules which, if broken, results in punishment. "On arrival you're placed in the induc-tion block. You spend about a week there, getting your head shaved the second day and then you start being woken up at six every morning to be trained in how to march properly," John said. Bark "It's a real shock to the system, both mentally and physically. They use long-term foreigners that have been there years and speak Japanese fluently to assist them with this training as none of the prison officers will speak English, even if they know it.

"All they do is bark the orders with a foghorn at the new arrivals and the long-term trustees that are bilingual bark them on to you in English," he added. "When I say these guys are trustees they don't get any privileges for this work, but it's easier than working in the factories. At least they get to move around."
"Finally, after you've been trained to their satisfaction you then get allocated to another cell on the work-er-bees wing, which has 80 cells on each floor and there's three floors," he said. In the morning, as prisoners face the wall, they obey as orders to move are shouted through a foghorn. "We'd then turn around and stand on a white line that is in the middle of the land-ing, so the 15 of us would be standing on this white line and we'd have to outstretch our arms to make sure we were the correct distance away from the guy in front," John added.

"Basically we had to start marching on the spot on this white line for about five minutes to warm up." Prisoners were then marched out of the landing, where they would join up with Japanese prisoners. "Each of the 50 or so factories hold about 60 prisoners, 15 foreigners and about 45 Japanese, so we would be in three lines of 20 pris-oners in each line," he said. "On arriving at the factory we were made march upstairs and into a changing room, to change from our drab cell clothes into the working uniform, which is exactly the same kind of clobber.

"The deal is to get you to strip naked, open your mouth to show you weren't hid-ing anything, which would be impossible as we had absolutely no access to any kind of implements or weapons. "This strip search was more of an excuse to make you feel embarrassed and simply part of the twisted regime. "We'd be made open our mouths, turn around naked, spread your ass checks, also armpit checks and the soles of your feet where checked, before we had to change into the factory version of clothes," John told the Sunday World. Escaped "Then we had to line up again inside the factory and start with the ridiculous regime of lining up in three lines of 20 to get our number called again, as if one of us might have escaped while we were walking the 300 metres from the cell block to the factory."

"All the staff are martial artists on a mission to inflict as much mental torture on you as is possible — usually for doing nothing at all," he claimed. John believes Hinds will be singled out by the prison guards because of the high-profile nature of the case. "I guarantee he won't be coming out after five, he'll serve most of the 10-year sentence," he said.