- Were YOU involved in the brawl, or did you witness it yourself? Email katherine.lawton@mailonline.co.uk
Two Spanish waiters who were injured in a violent brawl by British 'stag do' tourists in Majorca have exclusively told MailOnline about the moment they were set upon by the allegedly drunken thugs.
Eight British men were hauled before a court in Palma yesterday evening after several staff and two police officers were hurt in the fracas at the Balneario Illetas beach club restaurant in Calvia, the municipality where party resort Magaluf is located, at 7.30pm on Wednesday.
In exclusive footage obtained by MailOnline, four British men – some of whom were barefoot and still in beachwear - were seen being bundled out of a civil guard van in handcuffs and brought into the courthouse in Palma by armed cops.
The four men in the second Civil Guard van, arriving around 5.30pm local time (4.30pm BST), used their T-shirts to cover their faces and said nothing as they attended a hearing that took place behind closed doors.
It is thought the other four men were brought to the courthouse earlier in the day.
Some of the men were seen walking out of the courthouse last night.
Shocking online footage of the brawl shows people flung to the ground as beach bar staff tried to intervene and break up the chaos, which apparently erupted after workers asked the group to stop throwing rubbish in the sea.
Six local police and members of the Civil Guard were scrambled to the scene to arrest the Brits, but were reportedly confronted with further violence.
Local officials said they had rarely seen such violence from detainees who were said to have tried to flee after they were targeted by officers.
Speaking to MailOnline, a Spanish Civil Guard spokesman declined to name the men who were arrested but said three were aged 30, one aged 29, two aged 28, one aged 26 and another aged 24.
A waiter injured in the clashes has claimed how the British holidaymakers soon turned 'aggressive' when staff challenged them about their 'rude' behaviour and throwing rubbish on the sand and in the sea.
Married father-of-one Nacho, 42, who did not wish to give his surname, told MailOnline the beach brawl was 'like a battle' which saw him repeatedly punched and later caught in a headlock by one of the Brits.
He said: 'From early in the morning they were having drinks on the beach, for celebration.
'When I came to restaurant to work it was about 4.00pm, but they were there about 10 in the morning.
'They stay drinking, but then they start disturbing the other clients and dropping trash and bottles and things like that over the sand and the sea.
'The fight started with that, the trash, because they were throwing trash into the sea, and our colleagues had gone in for a dip because they finish their work, and they tell them to stop.
'Then they [the British men] start to laugh about him and insult him and some things like that.
'Finally they, the group, start to hit him. Then more colleagues go to the beach to try to stop and then they [the British group] start to hit everybody.'
Nacho said tensions arose prior to this when some of the Brits and their wider group tried to go into the beach club's high-end restaurant while in their soaking wet beachwear.
He said: 'We start to say you cannot do this, just take your shoes and wear a t-shirt please.'
'They don't obey us, so I think they were angry for that.'
He said he became embroiled in the fracas when he saw his manager and another colleague attacked as they went to the beach to intervene in the clashes.
He added: 'For a while, 30 seconds maybe, the fight stop a little bit.
'I was stood in the restaurant at this point…Then I saw them hit my boss and the rest of people so that's when I decide to go down to the beach to help.
'I try to stop the fight, in as far as I can, it was quite difficult. There was the big man in the shorts he starts to hit me, you can see in the video.'
'He was hitting in my head, in the back of my neck.'
Nacho was sent back to the restaurant by his boss, but the nightmare simply continued, he said.
'When I was in the restaurant the big man start to blame me and he say to me, saying 'Fuck you Spanish people' and another girl also start to blame me.'
Nacho said on facing up to the Brit, his was suddenly grabbed from behind by someone else, which he says has left him with a nasty bruise on his shoulder.
He added: 'All the time they don't want to stop…it was like a battle.'
'I have to say in 25 years in working in restaurants in Costa del Sol and here in Majorca I've never seen a situation like that.'
Asked how he felt about British holidaymakers coming to Spain, he blamed 'English' tourists' for the problems, adding: 'Often here in Magaluf, when it's a big fight, it's English involved, not Scottish, not Irish, not Wales.
'I have no problems with the British people, because I work in restaurants a lot of time, I have got a lot of English friends, good people, I don't like to blame.'
Another waiter hurt in the fight told MailOnline how he worries about returning to work in case other tourist brawls happen.
The man, who did not want to be identified for fear of losing his job, claimed the group spent €1,500 in the restaurant eating and drinking before the chaos erupted.
He said: 'They were good, fine, having fun. But it all started when they started to go to the bathroom, without clothes.
'We told them 'you have to wear shoes, you have to wear the shirt, you are bringing a lot of sand and in the bathroom there's a lot of water and if you fall and you have pain or you hurt, we've got a problem'.
He said the group got 'mad' at this before returning to the beach, where some of the bar's waiters had finished their shift and were enjoying beers and a swim.
'One of them [the staff] then went for a swim next to the British people and the British people were throwing trash into the water.
'This worker told them 'please don't throw trash on the water' and they were like 'no, just do your fucking job, we don't care' whatever.
'They were drunk, and they get very mad and they start to hit him.'
The waiter claimed the worker then shouted to his colleagues for help but they were also set upon by the angry Brits.
He said: 'They were going in there to separate them. But when they arrived, the English started to hit them.
'I saw the fight from the restaurant, and I went to the reception and I start to call the authorities, when I saw a colleague of mine, a woman… [go] flying in the sand.'
On intervening, the waiter said a 'big man' in the British group hit him, adding: 'He hurt a lot of people'.
'When I get down there, another one [Brit] told me, 'do your fucking job, you are dead'.
'I was like 'what in the world did I do to you?' I just arrived, is it because I am staff and I look the same. I don't understand anything.
'Then after the man said what he said to me, I turned around…and then someone hits me.'
The waiter told how he was knocked to ground during the attack and said he is still in pain now.
He claimed he saw the British men hurting the women with them as they tried to pull them away from the fight.
He added: 'I can't think how this can happen. I think it's important to say, I think this is the same thing we are having here in these past weeks.
'All this news we are having is because of this sort of tourism. We are the workers, we don't want this. We want good quality tourism.'
He warned that when tourists 'come here to drink a lot, it has these types of consequences.'
The waiter said he felt fearful of returning to work, adding: 'When I see tourists like this, I think 'What do we have now?' It could happen now [again].'
But rather than wishing ill on his attackers, the waiter said he felt 'bad' for them 'because of this reputation of the English people'.
He added: 'I want this problem to be solved. Now we are seeing a lot of [anti-tourist] demonstrations, there's going to be more, that's why I don't feel good [about this], because maybe this will be the point of no return.'
He told how a relative working at another hotel on the island said it had received messages from British tourists asking if it is 'safe for them to travel here'.
The brawl in Majorca comes amid a backdrop of ongoing anti-tourist protests on the island, as locals attempt to clamp down on disruptions caused by holidaymakers.
Last Saturday, around 15,000 people took to the streets of Palma to protest against overtourism, with those marching seen holding placards reading 'tourists go home'.
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2024-05-31 06:11:06Z
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