{"id":433688,"date":"2026-02-19T07:01:14","date_gmt":"2026-02-19T07:01:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/433688\/"},"modified":"2026-02-19T07:01:14","modified_gmt":"2026-02-19T07:01:14","slug":"brits-detained-in-iran-receive-10-year-prison-sentence-family-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/433688\/","title":{"rendered":"Brits detained in Iran receive 10-year prison sentence, family says"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bennett said that no evidence of spying has ever been presented by the Iranian authorities. <\/p>\n

He said the UK government must “act decisively and use every available avenue” to bring them home. <\/p>\n

The family say a judge delivered the sentence at the Branch 15 of the Tehran Revolutionary Court. <\/p>\n

The Sussex couple, who are both in their 50s, had endured 13 months in “dire” conditions, Bennett has previously said<\/a> – adding that they were surrounded by “dirt, vermin, and violence”. <\/p>\n

He said they had not been eating and were losing weight. <\/p>\n

The Foremans are detained in separate wings in Tehran’s notorious Evin prison, which has long drawn criticism<\/a> for alleged torture and inhumane conditions. It reportedly holds thousands of inmates, including journalists and political prisoners. <\/p>\n

Bennett has said the couple’s lawyers in Iran made it clear there was no legal basis for a case against them. He added that their bail applications had been ignored. <\/p>\n

Bennett has said that his mother and stepfather’s plight left him with “sick with worry” and that he has repeatedly pressed the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) to help them. <\/p>\n

He has said that his family felt “abandoned” by the government, and that letters he sent to the prime minister and foreign secretary have gone unanswered. <\/p>\n

The FCDO has previously said it was “deeply concerned” by the Foremans’ situation and that it continued to raise their case “directly” with Iranian authorities.<\/p>\n

French citizens C\u00e9cile Kohler, Jacques Paris and Olivier Grondeau, and German national Nahid Taghavi, were all released from Iranian jails following sustained pressure by their respective governments, their families said. <\/p>\n

The BBC was previously told that the couple may be being used as bargaining chips between Iran and its Western opponents, and that it was hoped a deal could be brokered as Trump attempts to improve relations with Iran. <\/p>\n

On Tuesday, Iran said it had found “grounding principles” with the US to resolve disputes over its nuclear programme.<\/p>\n

The meeting took place after the US made repeated military threats over Iran’s deadly crackdown on anti-government protests.<\/p>\n

Activists say that at least 6,000 people were killed in the demonstrations against the government and high living costs. Thousands more deaths are being investigated.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bennett said that no evidence of spying has ever been presented by the Iranian authorities. He said the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":433689,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-433688","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-kingdom","8":"tag-gb","9":"tag-great-britain","10":"tag-greatbritain","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom","14":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433688","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=433688"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433688\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/433689"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=433688"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=433688"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=433688"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}