-6The CPT also found that the conditions of detention at Mygdonia Border Guard Station near Thessaloniki were totally unsuitable. Placing UASC for several days or even weeks in police custody for “protection” purposes without any assistance and psycho-social support instead of providing them with accommodation in an appropriate shelter is unacceptable. The children’s welfare should come first which, by definition, should exclude accommodating them in police or border guard stations. Further, the detention of parents with children in police and border guard stations should be ended. Adults in immigration detention (other than RICs) A number of credible allegations of physical ill-treatment of foreign national detainees by police officers were received at Thessaloniki and Petrou Ralli Special holding facilities. Rigorous action should be taken to counter acts of ill-treatment. Further, the conditions of detention in these two facilities were totally inadequate for holding irregular migrants for short periods of time, let alone for weeks or months. At Thessaloniki, immediate steps should be taken to ensure inter alia that every person detained is provided with a clean mattress and bedding, that all cells are disinfested, and that, for public health reasons, medical screening is carried out upon admission. The indifferent attitude of staff towards detainees at this facility should be addressed by putting in place a new robust management. At Petrou Ralli, action is required to address the state of the filthy, stuffy and infested cells and to improve the poor provision of health-care services. Further, at neither of these two facilities nor at the Athens airport holding facilities were detainees offered at least one hour of outdoor exercise every day. There is also a need to ensure all detainees who do not speak Greek are informed about their situation in a language they understand. As for Drapetzona Police Station, the dungeon-like living conditions were squalid and detainees were never offered access to fresh air. The CPT considers that holding people in such conditions could be considered as inhuman and degrading as well as representing a public health risk. The Greek authorities are requested to take this police station definitively out of service. Treatment of criminal suspects detained by the police In the course of the July 2016 visit, a number of credible allegations of physical ill-treatment of detained criminal suspects (including juveniles) were received. Determined action is required to tackle the widespread and deep-rooted problem of ill-treatment by the police and to promote a fundamentally different approach towards methods of police investigation. This requires inter alia rigorous recruitment procedures, improved professional training and the introduction of electronic recording of police interviews. Referencing the case law of the European Court of Human Rights, the CPT recalls the necessity for investigations into allegations of ill-treatment to be effective and requests information on a number of cases raised in the report on its 2015 visit to Greece. The formal safeguards against ill-treatment continue to remain ineffective in practice. The CPT reiterates that access to a lawyer should apply from the very outset of deprivation of liberty by the police – prior to and during questioning by security police officers – when the risk of intimidation and physical ill-treatment is greatest. Further, to improve access to a doctor, a system of visits to police stations should be established and a police officer trained in first aid and in cardiopulmonary resuscitation should always be on duty in detention facilities. In addition, information on rights should be systematically provided to detained persons in a language they understand and should include a section on how to make a complaint. The material conditions in the police stations visited were totally unsuitable for holding persons for longer than 24 hours given the lack of any outdoor exercise yard. In addition, many of them were also overcrowded, dirty and unhygienic.