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The UK government on Thursday condemned Iran’s sentencing of a British couple to 10 years’ imprisonment for alleged spying.
UK foreign secretary Yvette Cooper said the conviction of Craig and Lindsay Foreman, who were arrested in January 2025 while on a multi-country motorcycle trip, was “completely appalling and totally unjustifiable”.
“We will pursue this case relentlessly with the Iranian government until we see Craig and Lindsay Foreman safely returned to the UK and reunited with their family,” Cooper said in a statement.
Joe Bennett, Lindsay’s son, told ITV News that the couple were sentenced to 10 years “following a trial that lasted just three hours and in which they were not allowed to present a defence”.
He said they were informed of the sentence last week and his family was “deeply concerned” about the welfare of the pair, who are being held in Tehran’s Evin prison. “They have consistently denied the allegations. We have seen no evidence to support the charge of espionage,” Bennett said.
There has been no official Iranian comment on their sentencing nor coverage in Iran’s media. The Iranian embassy in London did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Tensions between the UK, Iran and other western nations have escalated during the past year over concerns about the Islamic republic’s nuclear programme, its alleged targeting of Iranians and other nationals in Europe and elsewhere, and Tehran’s domestic crackdowns.
In recent weeks, US President Donald Trump has been weighing whether to launch an attack against Iran after the Islamic regime’s brutal suppression of mass protests, in which thousands of people were killed.
The UK government has long warned its nationals not to travel to Iran, saying British and British-Iranian dual nationals are at significant risk of arrest, questioning or detention.
The Foreign Office travel advice warns that having “a British passport or connections to the UK can be reason enough for the Iranian authorities to detain you”.
Iran has a history of arresting foreign citizens and Iranian dual nationals and accusing them of espionage.
Ten years ago, it arrested UK-Iranian dual national Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe at Tehran airport as she prepared to fly home from a family holiday with her young daughter.
Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a media trainer with the Thomson Reuters Foundation, was eventually released and able to return to the UK in 2022, with another freed dual national, Anoosheh Ashoori.
Their release came after Britain had settled $530mn of debt owed to the republic for the purchase of Chieftain tanks that Tehran paid for before the 1979 Islamic revolution but the deal was then cancelled by the UK.