British stag do tourists enjoy seven-hour poolside drinking session after eight spent night in cells following beach punch-up that injured two police and a waiter

A group of British 'stag do' tourists embarked on a seven-hour poolside bender after eight of their pals spent the night in a Majorcan police station following a beachside punch-up that injured two cops and a waiter.

The gang, believed to be made up of builders from St Albans, Hertfordshire, spent Friday afternoon laughing and downing beers without a care in the world at the £300-a-night INNside Melia Palma Bosque hotel - just hours after their arrested friends were forced to spend £850 each to get their passports back.

Eight of their friends spent two nights in jail after a dispute with waiters at the upmarket Balneario Illetas beach club sparked a huge melee on Wednesday evening.

A waiter injured in the clashes accused the holidaymakers of turning 'aggressive' when staff begged them to stop throwing rubbish into the sea.

Footage of the fracas showed security guards and restaurant staff grappling with the allegedly drunken holidaymakers as reggaeton music pumps in the background.

One woman in a bikini - as well as one of the security guards - ended up being knocked to the ground in the scuffle.

Last night, footage obtained by MailOnline showed four of the men - some of whom were barefoot and still in beachwear - being bundled out of a civil guard van in handcuffs and brought into the court by armed guards.

The men used 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.

It is understood there will be an investigation into the brawl, after which a judge will set a date for a trial if prosecutors decide to charge them.

A spokeswoman for the Palma courthouse said: 'The court granted bail for eight (British) men who were detained under a bond for possible civil damage caused.

'No date was set for them to return. This is a criminal case.'

The group are understood to have returned to the chic hotel, located near the Port of Palma de Mallorca, which boasts two swimming pools, a spa, a fusion restaurant and premium rooms costing upwards of £300 a night.

Some of those arrested were seen sunbathing by the pool today with other pals not involved in the fracas.

A waiter injured in the clashes told MailOnline he had 'never seen a situation like that' in 25 years of working in restaurants on the Costa del Sol.

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 the 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 'F*** you Spanish people' and another girl also start to blame me.'

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.

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 racked up a €1,500 bill in the restaurant before the chaos erupted.

'I saw the fight from the restaurant', he said. '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 f***ing 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 the ground during the attack and said he is still in pain now.

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'.