Provincial authorities in south-western China have reversed their earlier version of how a man died in jail and demoted senior police officers over the incident ­following growing public ­discontent over the case.

In a rare press conference, the Yunnan Province prosecutor’s office said on Friday that Li Qiaoming, who died of severe brain injury in a Kunming jail last week, had been beaten to death by an inmate rather than died ­accidentally while playing hide and seek, as had earlier been claimed by the police.