British couple in Iran lose appeal against 10-year prison term, family says
Craig and Lindsay Foreman were arrested in Iran while on an around-the-world motorbike trip in January 2025
A British couple who have been detained in Iran have lost their appeal against a 10-year prison sentence, according to their family.
Listen to this article
Craig and Lindsay Foreman were arrested by Iranian authorities whilst travelling through the country in January 2025 and have been detained for over 500 days, accused of espionage.
The UK government has called the couple “innocent tourists” and has advised against travel to the country, which has been repeatedly accused of holding foreign nationals as hostages as the Iran War rages on.
The couple’s family has said they were not allowed to attend the hearing and were provided with little information about the proceedings. The appeal was reportedly conducted without their knowledge, and the pair were told to sign documents in Farsi, a language they cannot read.
Lindsay’s 32-year-old son, Joe Bennett, said in a statement: "They were not permitted to attend their own appeal hearing”.
Read more: Corrupt prison watchdog chairwoman jailed for smuggling cannabis to convicted killer
Joe, who gave up his job to campaign for his mum and step-dad, said that the case had now been referred to Iran's Supreme Court, but it is unclear what the process and timeline are, and he added that the couple were effectively without legal representation.
Craig and Lindsay have gone as far as resorting to a hunger strike in a desperate bid for freedom while being detained in Tehran’s notorious Evin Prison. Craig is three weeks into his hunger strike – a point at which experts have warned can lead to permanent damage and organ failure, while Lindsay is 11 days into the process.
Joe told the Mirror that in one of her last conversations with her son, Lindsay said: "We are not very valuable as hostages if we're dead, so they'd better open up a channel”. Shortly after the conversation, prison authorities promptly took away Lindsay and her husband’s phone cards.
At one point, Lindsay was tricked by prison authorities into giving up her hunger strike. Joe said: "One of the cruellest aspects of this situation is that Lindsay and Craig have often been prevented from seeing or communicating with one another, so neither fully knew what the other was doing.
"Our understanding is that Lindsay initially began a hunger strike around the same time as Craig, but prison authorities persuaded her to stop.”
"They reportedly showed her a letter they claimed was from Craig, saying he was not on hunger strike and asking her not to continue. She only saw it briefly before it was taken away. A few days later, she discovered that Craig had, in fact, been on hunger strike the entire time and realised she had been misled.
"That understandably left her feeling deeply hurt and betrayed again by the system around her, and from that point she became even more determined to continue."
The couple’s detention was previously branded “totally unjustifiable” by the British government, which has said it would continue to work for their release.
The government’s response has been criticised by the family, who earlier this year accused Iranian authorities of using the pair as "human shields" during international conflict.