43. Torture can be simply be referred to as inhumane acts causing severe pain or suffering, or serious injury to the body or to mental or physical health by a public officer with intent amongst others to obtain confession, or to punish the victim. The legal definition with its full complement will be espoused later. 44. For much of history torture was used quite commonly, and without huge outcry. Civilisations such as the Egyptians, the Persians, the Greeks and the Romans all used torture. Even the Church regarded it as an acceptable part of their armoury. Torture was used as part of many legal systems in the West until the early 19th century. Torture has been used as a punishment, to intimidate or control people, to get information or just to gratify sadistic impulses. Governments have used torture to keep themselves in power, to enforce their particular political philosophy, to remove opposition and to implement particular policies. 45. Since the middle of the last century there has generally been a general outcry against Torture. The Foreign Office web site says "Torture is one of the most abhorrent violations of human rights and human dignity," Mark Danner, an American writer and professor at Berkeley Graduate School expressed his disgust thus; Torture takes over someone's nervous system. Torture takes over what they feel. Torture takes over and penetrates into their mind and into their body. It's not only illegal, it's immoral. Lord Brown a British judge describes “torture as an unqualified evil. It can never be justified. Rather he must be always be punished.” 46. The outcry regard torture as wrong for several reasons: it is cruel, it treats people as means rather than ends. It is so wrong that the UN Convention Against Torture allows no exceptions, even in circumstances such as war or while fighting terrorism. Equally evidence obtained through torture is not admissible in Courts of law. Unfortunately, torture is still widely practised in the world. According to Amnesty International there were reports of torture or ill-treatment by state officials in more than 150 countries on the period 1997 to mid-2000. 47. Following various outcry and because of the gravity of torture, it was elevated to jus cogens, as one of the norms of international law that cannot be derogated from. The first international instrument which guarantees freedom from torture was therefore enshrined in 1948 in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) which provided in simple term that; No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment (see Article 5) 13