A convicted drug importer who claims to have been repeatedly beaten by narcotics officers while in custody broke down in tears in Magistrates' Court yesterday shouting: “Those f*****s almost put me in St. Brendan's!”

But during a tough cross-examination, defence lawyers Alan Doughty and Larry Scott accused Michael Madeiros of concocting the brutality allegations to aid his attempts of an acquittal in his Supreme Court drugs case earlier this year - an accusation Madeiros strenuously denied.

Six former narcotics officers - Jamiko Tucker, 27, Allan Miguel, 40, Kirley Mitchell, 31, Andrew Woolridge, 32, Antoine Fox, 37, and David Bhagwan, 30 - are charged with assaulting Madeiros and causing him bodily harm while he was in Police custody in late October 2003.

Madeiros, a former Dunkley's Dairy employee, was found guilty in February of conspiracy to import over two million dollars worth of cannabis in a dairy container shipped from the United States.

But as was revealed by Madeiros yesterday, all the Police evidence was ruled inadmissible in that trial because the judge was not satisfied it had been extracted voluntarily. The alleged beatings, according to Madeiros, took place soon after his arrest on October 24, 2003 after a Police surveillance operation had gone wrong and they had lost track of the whereabouts of the cardboard boxes containing a portion of the drugs.

Madeiros has already testified that he was beaten and tortured physically and psychologically at a number of different locations, including his then-apartment at Belmer Drive in Devonshire and at the narcotics office in Prospect.

“They were in a panic about some boxes they couldn't find and they beat me because of their own incompetence,” he said.

“They lost the boxes and they needed to find them and they were prepared to do anything they could to recover them and cover up the fact they had messed up.”

But the defence team spent most of yesterday attacking Madeiros' credibility, suggesting that the injuries he sustained were in fact the result of three separate incidents: a fight between Madeiros and his wife Lisa on October 29, a heated altercation with his wife's alleged lover on the same day and in attempting to escape Police custody when officers were searching his house on October 24.

All three scenarios were denied by Madeiros, who took strong issue with the accusation he attempted to escape and got injured in a scuffle with Police officers.

“I did not attempt to escape custody,” he insisted.

“All this running away and falling down stuff is c**p. It's their story to get out of this mess.”

Another accusation levelled at Madeiros was that the highly emotional state he was in soon after his arrest was not the result of his brutal treatment but because he realised his drugs scheme had been busted and he was in serious trouble.

“They beat me and I was very upset and confused because of that,” Madeiros retorted.

“Of course I was concerned about the investigation. Being arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to import drugs would be a concern to anybody.”

Increasingly riled by the persistent questioning of Mr. Scott, Madeiros then went on the offensive.

“Do you have any idea what it is like to wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat terrified those b***ers were going to come back and do it again?” he asked Mr. Scott.

“That is exactly what they told me they were going to do. Do you know what it is like Mr. Scott to have your family threatened? I hope this sort of thing never happens to you or your family because I don't think you have a clue. Don't sit there and tell me what happened to me, I'm tired of it.”

In the afternoon, meanwhile, Madeiros' wife Lisa told the court how she had seen significant red swelling to the left side of her husband's face when she arrived at Belmer Drive on October 24 to confront the investigating officers with her lawyer Mark Diel.

Such swelling had only become worse when she saw him again that night at Hamilton Police Station, Mrs. Madeiros said