BBC’s Spooks to air waterboarding episode

The television show, which has just returned for its seventh series on BBC One, will show the episode where actor Richard Armitage underwent the controversial interrogation method.

Waterboarding involves the subject being placed on their backs and pouring water over their face and into the breathing passages while they have a cloth blocking their airways.

Armitage, who also stars as Sir Guy of Gisborne in BBC’s Robin Hood, agreed to the scene because he believed the technique to be “a humane way of extracting information without hurting people”.

But the actor, who plays Lucas North, a British agent who has spent eight years in a Russian prison, said he had changed his mind after experiencing it for three seconds.

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He said last month: “I realised that it really is a form of torture that shouldn’t be used. I only lasted five to 10 seconds, and the sound of my voice crying out to stop isn’t me acting. The psychological damage of doing that to someone for even a minute would be indescribable.”

• A d v e r t i s e m e n t

Kudos Film & Television, the show’s producers, consulted a health-and-safety advisor for the sequence and adhered to his advice.

A spokesman said: “On the day itself the adviser was present, as well as a medic.”