‘I’ve spent 10 months in a Romanian prison after travelling from Birmingham for a music festival’

A Birmngham music fan has spent 10 months banged up in a Romanian prison on drug charges after attending a festival - and says he is living in hell.

Ethan Gill, 29, is among a group thought to number up to 12 who are being held in a jail in Constanta, a city on the east coast. They had travelled out to Romania to attend the music festival Sunwaves in April last year but were arrested at their hotel.

Ethan, from Birmingham, has been convicted of drugs trafficking and was handed a six-year sentence, his family say. And he says he and his fellow inmates are being treated like "animals" in the jail.

Ethan said from prison: "It's appalling. The only toilet is a hole in the ground which is rarely cleaned. For breakfast we get a single slice of salami, for lunch we get 'soup' which is just water and carrots - our calorie intake is minimal.

"The lights are on 24 hours a day, you have to cover your eyes just to sleep, the water comes out of the tap brown. There's bed lice everywhere and we only get two showers per week."

Ethan previously worked as a tool design engineer at top car companies. But he says his life has been turned upside down since the arrest - and there is no end in sight.

He claims he was with another person who sold drugs to someone while in Constanta. Their hotel was then raided just moments later - leading him to believe the buyer was an undercover police officer.

Twelve Brits were arrested in total, Ethan said - including Jay Anthony Cabrera Fletcher, from north London. Jay's brother Jordan said: "They are all trying to keep their spirits up but it's very hard. Jay says there are rats and cockroaches, and it's so cold at night they have to sleep with jackets on."

Ethan added: "It's all been so traumatic, the first three months here I was just in a state of shock. There have been knife fights, stabbings, there's also a lot of self harming, one guy slit his own throat, it's so common."

Ethan has forked out £20,000 on legal fees for their lawyer, while his mother, despite being 63 has gone back to working full time in sales support to support him.

An FCDO spokesperson said: “We are providing consular assistance to a number of British nationals detained in Romania and are in contact with the local authorities.”