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A woman 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 negotiate their release after branding the spying allegations ‘crazy’.
In a video released on TikTok, he addressed Lindsay, who is 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 are going to spend it alone in a cell and not surrounded by the people who love you.
‘Birthdays are supposed to mark time but this year, it only remind me of all time has taken away from us – 300 days without you, 300 days stolen…
‘Mum, I love you, I miss you and I am doing everything in my power to make sure this 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 recent call lasted 20 minutes, where he said he could hear the ‘strength in her voice, but also the weight’ and the fear.
‘That both 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 did not do.’
His message comes as the Iranian regime executed 15 people, including one woman, in prisons across 11 cities over three days, the Hengaw Organization for Human Rights reported.
According to Iran Human Rights, at least 1,000 people have been executed in the first nine months of 2025.
But it added that the actual number is likely higher due to Iran’s secrecy around executions and restrictions on reporting.
The Foreign Office warns all British nationals against travel to Iran due to ‘significant risk of arrest, questioning, or detention’.
‘Having a British passport or connections to the UK can be reason enough for the Iranian authorities to detain you,’ it says.
A spokesperson for the Foreign Office told the BBC: ‘We are deeply concerned by reports that Craig and Lindsay Foreman have been charged with espionage in Iran.
‘We continue to raise this case directly with the Iranian authorities.’
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