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A lady from Sussex marked her 53rd birthday in Iran’s most notorious jail after being imprisoned on espionage charges alongside her husband.
Lindsay and Craig Foreman were arrested in January while driving through Kerman, a city on their around-the-world motorcycle tour route.
Joe Bennett, who lives in Folkestone, Kent, has been campaigning for the British government to do more to barter their release after branding the spying allegations ‘crazy’.
In a video released on TikTok, he addressed Lindsay, who’s being held in Evin prison, where British-Iranian national Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe was imprisoned between 2016 and 2022.
He said: ‘Dear mum, today is your birthday, and it breaks my heart that you will spend it alone in a cell and never surrounded by the individuals who love you.
‘Birthdays are alleged to mark time but this 12 months, it only remind me of all time has taken away from us – 300 days without you, 300 days stolen…
‘Mum, I really like you, I miss you and I’m doing every part in my power to be sure that is the last birthday you ever spent without us.’
Joe confirmed he has spoken to Lindsay twice since she was detained and accused of espionage.
Their most up-to-date call lasted 20 minutes, where he said he could hear the ‘strength in her voice, but in addition the load’ and the fear.
‘That each inspires me and breaks me,’ Joe added, fighting the tears in his eyes.
He vowed to never stop fighting to bring home Lindsay and Craig, who he says were arrested ‘for something they didn’t do.’
His message comes because the Iranian regime executed 15 people, including one woman, in prisons across 11 cities over three days, the Hengaw Organization for Human Rights reported.
In accordance with Iran Human Rights, at the very least 1,000 people have been executed in the primary nine months of 2025.
Nevertheless it added that the actual number is probably going higher resulting from Iran’s secrecy around executions and restrictions on reporting.
The Foreign Office warns all British nationals against travel to Iran resulting from ‘significant risk of arrest, questioning, or detention’.
‘Having a British passport or connections to the UK may be reason enough for the Iranian authorities to detain you,’ it says.
A spokesperson for the Foreign Office told the BBC: ‘We’re deeply concerned by reports that Craig and Lindsay Foreman have been charged with espionage in Iran.
‘We proceed to lift this case directly with the Iranian authorities.’
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