British couple held in notorious Iran prison ‘living off rice and gristle in kitchen filled with rats’

A British couple held in Iran on spying charges are living off rice and gristle in a dirty cell as they prepare to spend Christmas inside Tehran’s notorious Evin prison, their family have said.

Lindsay and Craig Foreman, of East Sussex, were arrested in January during a motorcycle tour around the world and later charged with espionage, which they deny.

Mrs Foreman’s son, Joe Bennett, said his mother is “suffering a lot with her skin and weight” due to a lack of ventilation and poor conditions in the prison after nearly a year.

“It is extremely dirty,” he told Sky News. “She’s cooking, the kitchen’s filled with rats. It is dire, to be honest with you, for them both.

“They’ve lost a lot of weight because there isn’t enough nourishment. They’re eating rice and gristle every day. They can’t really exercise. It’s overcrowded and cramped.”

As he and his family prepare to celebrate Christmas, he said he feels a sense of guilt while his mother is stuck in a cell.

Mr Bennett said the couple, both in their 50s, is being supported by the Foreign Office. He has met Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper, but feels “frustrated” by the Government’s handling of the situation.

“It feels like they’re waiting for something. We’re at a bit of a stalemate right now – Iran are waiting for the UK to move, the UK are waiting for Iran to move, and stuck in the middle are my parents and us.”

“There is this policy, it seems, to sit and wait and allow this judicial process which is, in my eyes, a complete circus, to play out.”

Mr Bennett has been able to contact them by phone only a handful of times since their arrest.

He revealed in November that they had gone on hunger strike in a “cry out for help” after feeling “let down” by the UK government.

He said this week: “We were told almost two months ago, when they last were in court, that a sentence would be passed in a couple weeks. We’re now two months down the line and nothing has happened.”

“I keep saying that we need to be being more accountable as a Government and speaking out. They are accused of espionage, spying for the British state, and yet that same UK Government won’t come out and defend them and say that they completely deny the allegations.”

The Foreign Office warns all British and British-Iranian nationals not to travel to Iran because of a “significant risk of arrest, questioning or detention”.

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