In September 2005, Australian disability pensioner Vincent Berg was returning home from Europe. He travelled from Rome to Frankfurt by train and boarded there a plane to Brisbane. After very long flight extended by several hours stopping in Singapore, on Friday, the 23rd of September 2005, Vincent Berg finally reached his home on the Gold Coast.

Since his childhood, Vincent Berg has never been capable of sleeping in trains, planes and public waiting places, and returned home extremely exhausted mentally and physically. His condition was a strange combination of extreme fatigue and feverishness.

Vincent Berg was very disturbed by accusations in some criminal offences lately made against him and wanted to clarify these with police. Almost immediately after arrival, he asked his adult son to contact police and arrange an appointment during the next working day after he had recovered from travel fatigue.

Nevertheless, police officers arrived almost immediately and started putting on Vincent Berg enormous psychological pressure compelling him to come with them to Surfers Paradise police station for an interview. He refused several times advising about extreme tiredness after long travelling. Vincent Berg’s son informed police officers that his father was a disability pensioner due to chronic mental illness, had three sleepless nights and was obviously unfit for an interview. The police officers totally ignored this advice. As Vincent Berg was unfit to resist the pressure from these officers, they forced him to consent to come with them.

Vincent Berg’s son accompanied him to Surfers Paradise police station. When Detective Sergeant Steven Geoffrey Bignell (Reg. No 5267), and Detective Sergeant Sean Wade (Reg. No 4006512), who intended to interview Vincent Berg, arrived, his son advised them that his father was a disability pensioner due to chronic mental illness, had three sleepless nights and was obviously unfit for an interview. He pointed to Vincent Berg’s noticeably abnormal psychological state and extreme exhaustion. Yet, it appeared that these police officers decided to use Vincent Berg’s unfitness for interview and his defenceless state for the purposes of their interrogation.

Vincent Berg had never truly volunteered to be interviewed that time, but was not fit mentally and physically to resist police pressure. Using this, police officers manipulated him, preferring to disregard his numerous warnings about his extreme tiredness (which can be clearly heard on the tape recording of the interrogation) and the fact that he was mentally ill. Vincent Berg was interrogated continuously for over five hours (in violation of section 403 of Queensland Police Powers and Responsibility Act 2000 limiting police interview by four hours) until almost 2am the next morning without presence of a support person as it is required in case of a person with disability by section 422(2)(b) of Queensland Police Powers and Responsibility Act 2000.

As a result of such a police ‘interview’, Vincent Berg was hospitalised shortly after interrogation, and his chronic mental illness further exacerbated. In a letter of the 10.01.2006 addressed to Vincent Berg’s son, Peter Bottomley, Director Ethical Standards Branch, Queensland Department of Corrective Services, testified that: “Mr Berg was assessed on the basis of him being identified as, or suffering from: a high risk of self harm or suicide; acute psychological needs; a heart murmur; Myopia; and physical disability… being appropriately placed into the medical centre of the AGCC [Arthur Gorrie Correctional Centre] for the reasons outlined above”. Later, after being released on bail, Vincent Berg had three lengthy hospitalisations in psychiatric unit in 2005, 2006, and 2007. Currently, he requires a live-in carer for his everyday needs, and is being regularly assessed and treated by a specialist-psychiatrist for a number of mental conditions including chronic paranoid schizophrenia.

In Vincent Berg’s case, police officers Steven Geoffrey Bignell and Sean Wade violated not only Queensland Police Powers and Responsibility Act 2000, but the international, Australian Federal and Queensland criminal laws.

Article 1 of the UN CONVENTION AGAINST TORTURE and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1975) establishes that “torture means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity”.

Police officers Steven Geoffrey Bignell and Sean Wade intentionally ignored Vincent Berg’s son warning about his father’s mental illness, mental and physical exhaustion and unfitness for interview as well as Vincent Berg’s numerous warnings about tiredness, and did not seek relevant advice of a medical professional. Police officers took advantage of Vincent Berg’s mental illness and extreme physical tiredness, which they intentionally deepened by sleep deprivation, for the purposes of their interrogation. This resulted in consequent Vincent Berg’s hospitalisation and exacerbation of his chronic mental illness.

Therefore, such a police action clearly satisfies international legal definition of torture as well as Australian Crimes (Torture) Act 1988 (Cmth) and section 320A of the Queensland Criminal Code 1899 and must lead to relevant criminal responsibility. However, local authorities are repelling Vincent Berg’s numerous requests for relevant criminal investigation.

It is common to associate torture with medieval inquisition, Hitler’s Gestapo, and totalitarian regimes of modern times or with abuse of power such as occurred in infamous Abu Ghraib. It is also accustomed to mostly associate torture with the use of physical force.

Yet, Vincent Berg’s story shows that a person (in particular, mentally ill) can be tortured without the use of physical force and that this can happen in a democratic and developed country. Such a torture is harder to detect, and, therefore, it can be more common than it seems and much more dangerous.