Drugged, handcuffed, and locked in an iron chair inside a steel cage – this is how Briton Peter Humphrey says he was forced to confess to crimes in China.

Six uniformed police officers sat at a podium; the lead interrogator “had a clipboard with a sheet of questions on it, and he was telling me how to answer,” Mr Humphrey, 63, told The Telegraph.

Appropriate responses included expressing repentance and apologising to China’s ruling Communist Party. “He would say things like, if you say this, it will help you get lenient treatment.”

Cameras captured Mr Humphrey’s slurred, sedated words; soon, a heavily edited version made to look like an ‘interview’ with a bombshell ‘confession’ was broadcast around the world by Chinese state media.

“They twisted things,” he said. “It was terrifying; all along, I knew I was innocent and that I was being falsely accused. I also knew that I had no way to escape.”