An off-duty cop who was stripped, stomped and pepper-sprayed in a Victorian police station says her 16-hour ordeal was like being in Guantanamo Bay.

Surveillance footage of the treatment Yvonne Berry received at the hands of fellow police in Ballarat in January 2015 shocked the nation when it came to the attention of the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission earlier this year.

Ms Berry, who was 51 at the time of the incident, has decided to step out from behind her pseudonym of "Person A" and tell her story in the hope that it will help stop this kind of brutality.

"If that's not why they were nasty to me (because Ms Berry was a police officer), then they were just nasty to a member of the public, which is worse," she told the ABC's 7.30 .

"It could happen to anyone — and I've since found out that it did, and it does."

Ms Berry, an internal investigator, had taken stress leave from her job in 2014. On the night of January 15, she was picked up at around 11pm, drunk to the point of incoherence. But instead of a few hours in the tank, Ms Berry was subjected to the kind of treatment that should be reserved for hardened criminals.

During the 16 hours she spent inside the station, Ms Berry was deprived of water, compelling her to drink from the toilet. She says she accidentally swiped one female officer's lanyard when she entered the cell, leading her to be pepper sprayed.

"Absolutely disgusting, it burns like fire on your skin," Ms Berry told the ABC. She was then handcuffed so tightly, she said, "they nearly broke my wrists."

Ms Berry was then forced face down onto the floor of her cell and had her underpants pants pulled down while a 95kg officer stood on her ankle. He is also accused of kicking her.

"I was basically lying there like a fat jellyfish," Ms Berry said, adding that the officers told her she was "f---ing disgusting" while they held her under what she says was a scalding hot shower that worsened the pain of the pepper spray.

"I was absolutely horrified. Stressed, demoralised," she said.

"Later on when I am in the cell, later on in the incident, I was just thinking, I'm in Guantanamo Bay. This isn't Ballarat... it can't be."

Although senior police have apologised for the way Ms Berry was treated, she is the only one to have been charged over the incident, including a count of resisting arrest.

The two officers accused of assaulting her have been told they can return to work.