UK ambassador visits detained British couple Craig and Lindsay Foreman in Evin prison

Mixed · 2British officials, including Ambassador Hugo Shorter, visited the British couple Craig and Lindsay Foreman in Iran's Evin prison on Monday 5 October, their first consular visit in months. 1 2 Mixed · 2The family's campaign group put the gap at 112 days; the couple had last met Shorter on 15 June, shortly before embassy staff were evacuated from Tehran amid escalating hostilities between the US and Iran, and British embassy officials returned in late August. 2 1 Mixed · 2Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband raised the case with Iranian counterpart Abbas Araghchi at the UN General Assembly in September and repeated the UK government's call for their immediate release. 1 2

Mixed · 2The couple, from East Sussex, were arrested in January 2025 while on a round-the-world motorcycle trip and were sentenced to ten years for espionage; Arab News, citing Sky News, says the sentence came in February this year. Iranian authorities accused them of spying for the UK and Israel, while Lindsay has called the charges a "joke; lies and nonsense". UN experts have described the detention as "state hostage taking for political leverage". 1 2 Mixed · 2During the visit it emerged that Lindsay was still waiting for prescribed medication and had been unable to call her lawyers in the UK, the family said. 1 2 Mixed · 2Lindsay showed the officials a document dated 3 June listing conditions she understood prison authorities had agreed, including phone contact, consular access, access to a lawyer and basic welfare provisions; the family says many remain unresolved. 1 2

Mixed · 2Craig told officials he had regained about 10kg of the 17kg he lost during a hunger strike; the couple reportedly appear physically stronger, and The National reports they are supporting fellow prisoners, with Lindsay giving yoga lessons and Craig helping with cooking, which the family said did not mean their situation was improving. 2 1 Mixed · 2Phone contact is reported differently: The National says their phone cards were cut off in May after Lindsay gave an interview to British media from prison and the family expects a call on Wednesday promised by prison authorities, while Arab News, citing the campaign group, says the family has been granted one call per week. 1 2 Mixed · 2Lindsay's son Joe Bennett welcomed Miliband's intervention but said more is needed: "I don’t want another assurance that a phone call should happen. I want the phone to ring." He said he has spoken to his mother for only about 10 minutes in five months. 1 2

Centre · 1The National places the visit amid record UK-Iran tensions after a suspected terror attack at a British airbase housing US military planes last week and attacks on Jewish businesses and Iranian dissidents in the UK that police suspect were ordered by Iranian officials. 1