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'100-day nightmare' City man trapped in 'dangerous' African jail finally home
Bristol Post
|May 27, 2025
A BRISTOL man who was trapped in one of West Africa's most overcrowded and dangerous prisons for over three months has finally returned home.
Richard Perham, 29, from Bristol, along with Paul Inch, 50, from Blaenau Ffestiniog in Wales, feared for their lives after being locked up in Guinea’s Conakry Central Prison, where railway-carriage sized cells are crammed with 80 people sharing just one toilet.
The pair had travelled to Guinea, in West Africa, for a four-day job to recover equipment from a high-altitude research balloon which had been swept off course in high winds.
But their job turned into a nightmare on January 1, 2025, after authorities accused them of espionage and they were jailed.
The prison, said to be one of the most dangerous in West Africa, operates at over five times capacity and is infested with rats, mosquitoes, and cockroaches.
While inside, both men were threatened with sexual and physical violence, and suffered from dehydration, gastrointestinal illness, and skin infections.
This story is from the May 27, 2025 edition of Bristol Post.
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