A prison inmate is claiming to have been “severely beaten” by a prison guard after refusing an order to urinate on his cell floor, Times of Malta has learnt.

Prison authorities told this newspaper they had ordered a magisterial inquiry to be conducted after Jason Decelis, 37, claimed to have been “covered in bruises” by a correctional officer at Corradino Correctional Facility.

Attempts to contact Jason Decelis proved futile, however his father Carmel said the correctional officer had ordered his son to urinate on his single cell’s floor instead of using the toilet.

He described this as an act of “bullying” and a form of “psychological abuse” that his son had often suffered at the hands of the prison guards.

“Who knows why they do these things, they are harsh people,” he said, adding that the prison authorities had taken photographs of his son’s injuries.

Jason Decelis is serving a 25-year-prison sentence for the murder by omission of 18-year-old Rachel Bowdler.

Ms Bowdler’s lifeless body was found by a farmer in a field in an area known as Ras il-Ġebel, limits of Mġarr, on May 13, 2001.

A day earlier, she and Jason Decelis had been in his mother’s flat in Buġibba. Both had a drug addiction problem.

At about 6pm she lost consciousness from a heroin overdose and Jason Decelis panicked.

He was jailed for 25 years over the incident, his mother for 15 and his father for one-and-a-half years, as he was cleared of murder but found guilty of involuntary homicide.

Jason Decelis was last week also charged with conspiracy to traffic drugs into the prison.

He was found in possession of five grams of heroin, 10 grams of cocaine and 99 steroids.