US prisoner forgotten in cell for four days

A US bailiff is under internal investigation after a woman spent four days forgotten in a holding cell without food, water or a toilet.

Bailiff Jarrod Hankins put Adriana Torres-Flores in the cell to await transport to jail in Arkansas on Thursday and did not let her out until Monday morning.

No-one on the fourth floor of the courthouse had heard her cries or her banging on the two-inch thick steel door of the cell.

“There’s nothing at all that indicates this was done intentionally,” said Washington county chief deputy Jay Cantrell. “This was a very, very horrible accident.”

Mr Hankins remained on administrative leave today pending an internal investigation.

Torres-Flores, 38, arrested on charges of selling pirated CDs, had been remanded in custody by a judge.

On Monday she was taken to a hospital, where she was treated and released and allowed to go home, though she still faces deportation.

Torres-Flores told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette newspaper that she used a shoe as a pillow to sleep in the holding cell, which had two benches, a metal table and a light she could not turn off.

“She was feeling like she was going to die,” said her daughter, Adriana Torres-Diaz.

“She had to use the bathroom on the floor. She said she was so thirsty she had to drink her own urine.”