Spooks prepares to screen real waterboarding torture scene
Tuesday, October 28th, 2008
The BBC is to show scenes of an actor undergoing genuine torture during the new series of the popular show, Spooks. The drama, which tells the fictional story of a group of MI5 agents, will show the actor Richard Armitage (pictured) endure waterboarding, the infamous interrogation technique which simulates the sensation of drowning.
In the story, Armitage plays British agent Lucas North, who rejoins MI5 after spending eight years in a Russian prison. Armitage said that he had agreed to film the scene after reassurances from consultants at the FSB, the Russian intelligence service, and the CIA that waterboarding was “a humane way of extracting information without hurting people”.
However, his view changed completely after his experience. “I was strapped to a pallet and laid at an angle with a cloth placed over my mouth,” he said. “My arms and legs were tied, and we had agreed a signal that when it became too much I would bang my arms on my legs.
Dating as far back as the Spanish Inquisition, waterboarding involves subjects being tied down on their backs, usually on a wooden board, with their faces covered by a permeable cloth. Water is poured on a cloth that blocks their airways, making it impossible to breathe without inhaling water. The process rapidly induces the most extreme panic in those subjected to it.
“You start to breathe in and out,” says Armitage, “but when the water just fills everywhere up it just hits you. It changed my opinion completely.
“I realised that it really is a form of torture that shouldn’t be used. I only lasted five to ten seconds, and the sound of my voice crying out to stop isn’t me acting. The psychological damage of doing that to someone for even a minute would be indescribable.”
This is the first time that the BBC has used genuine torture techniques in the show, and the corporation is bracing itself for complaints. Ofcom may be asked to examine the scene, to be broadcast on 3rd November, to see if it complies with the Broadcasting Code. The Code forbids the transmission of content that “glamorises violent, dangerous, or seriously antisocial behaviour and is likely to encourage others to copy such behaviour”.
A spokesperson for the programme’s makers, Kudos, said “We consulted our health and safety adviser at length for this sequence and strictly adhered to his advice. On the day itself the adviser was present, as well as a medic.” Spooks returned for a seventh series yesterday on BBC1.
