The Asociación Unificada de Guardias Civiles (AUGC) in Alicante, the union representing Guardia Civil officers, are denouncing the “painful conditions” in which the agents must provide service due to the “terrible forecast and planning” of building work being carried out to improve the facilities in the judicial headquarters of the City of Orihuela, which makes it “impossible to develop a public security service with due guarantees”.
In said Judicial Headquarters there is a Custody Centre for detainees that has cells where several people usually stay and where officers from various units around the Vega Baja, as well as those in charge of carrying out the transfer of prisoners from the Penitentiary Centres of Foncalent and Villena carry out a custody service for several hours in order to present the detainees before the Judicial Authority of the different Courts of the Palace of Justice.
Since May, the rehabilitation work has been carried out inside the detention centre and during the time that the custody agents remain inside, they must remain standing all the time, with different construction material around them (machinery, sacks of cement, heaps of sand, bricks, rubble, etc.), withstanding heavy blows and thunderous noises produced by the tools of the workers such as drills, saws, moto-picks, etc., as well as withstanding bad odours and the intense dust, affecting both breathing and sight since they lack any kind of protective material, the union reports.
The most deplorable and worrying thing is that this same situation is also suffered by persons deprived of their liberty who are in the custody of the agents, as well as their lawyers when they meet with their clients prior to hearing with the Judicial Authority, all of this, they say, puts their honour, privacy and image at risk, since there are several workers at the site doing their work, able to listen to the conversations as well as the detainees being in sight or they must pass in front of the workers when they are taken to the police station.
Likewise, access to the garage, due to the various construction material deposited inside, seriously hinders the access of police vehicles and the correct entry of detainees into the cells, and may cause damage to the vehicles or, worse, a stumble or fall of the agents or detainees.
