Italian police 'battered our daughter'
The parents of a British woman who spent her 27th birthday in police custody in Genoa have described how their "peace-loving girl" was "battered" by Italian police.
Nicola Doherty is one of five Britons held in Genoa after police raided the headquarters of a protest organisation at the weekend after rioting at the G8 summit.
Miss Doherty, who with the four other UK nationals now faces a wait of up to 48 hours to find out whether she will face charges, had gone to the Italian city to protest peacefully, her parents say.
Miss Doherty's father Jim said he and his wife Lorna had been kept in the dark about what had happened to their daughter.
Mr Doherty, 47, from Chatham, Kent, said: "All we know is that she was asleep and was woken by police, battered around the head and now has a broken wrist.
"She is a peace-loving girl. We don't know what has happened except that the authorities have another 48 hours to decide whether or not to charge her."
The five Britons now facing charges were arrested with 88 other people when police swooped on the Genoa Social Forum (GSF) on Saturday night after two days of anti-G8 summit rioting.
Genoa's chief prosecutor Luigi Francesco Meloni has passed a file on their cases to an investigation magistrate who has up to 48 hours to decide whether they should face charges.
Seventy-eight foreigners out of the 93 people who were arrested in the raid remain in custody while 15 Italians have been freed as the investigations continue.
The five Britons held in the raid were Mark Covell, 33, from London, who was in hospital with internal bleeding and broken ribs though said to be getting better; Miss Doherty, 27, and her boyfriend Richard Moth, 32, whose parents live in Portsmouth, Jonathan Norman Blair, 38, from Newport, and Daniel MacQuillan, 35.
