The detention of Craig and Lindsay Foreman began at a checkpoint in central Iran on 3 January 2025. It has since become one of the most stubborn files on the UK’s diplomatic desk. The couple, from East Sussex, were riding motorbikes to Australia on a round-the-world trip. Nineteen months later they are in Tehran’s Evin prison, convicted of espionage they deny, and as of this week they have only just ended a hunger strike that came dangerously close to killing them.
It wasn’t supposed to end like this.
In short: Craig and Lindsay Foreman are a British married couple who have been held in Iran since 3 January 2025, sentenced to 10 years in prison by Tehran’s Revolutionary Court on 19 February 2026, with Craig handed a further two years in July for speaking to the media. The pair deny espionage, the UK government describes them as innocent tourists, and as of 10 August 2026 they remain in Evin prison.
A research trip that ended at a checkpoint
Craig Foreman, a carpenter, and his wife Lindsay, a life coach with a doctorate in psychology, left the UK for Spain after Brexit and then decided the next move should be bigger. In 2024 the pair set off by motorbike for Australia, where Dr Foreman was due to present at a positive psychology conference in Brisbane in July 2025. Her research project along the way was simple. She would ask people what it means to be human, and what constitutes a good life.
They had been on television before, appearing in a 2022 episode of Channel 4’s A New Life in the Sun, and their arrest fed them into a harsher version of the same machinery, one where private people become public property and the story is owned by whoever shouts loudest, a pattern DigitalTreasure examined when Ulrika Jonsson escaped the tabloid orbit that made her.
The couple entered Iran from Armenia on 30 December 2024 with valid visas, an approved itinerary and a licensed guide, despite the Foreign Office advising against all travel to Iran since May 2022, according to Wikipedia’s account of the case. They planned to cross into Pakistan by 4 January. Instead, the Revolutionary Guard detained them on 3 January. They were held in the city of Kerman, and the news only broke on 13 February 2025.
How the detention of Craig and Lindsay Foreman unfolded
- 30 December 2024. The couple ride into Iran from Armenia.
- 3 January 2025. Detained by the Revolutionary Guard and held in Kerman.
- 13 February 2025. The detention becomes public and the Foreign Office confirms consular support.
- August and October 2025. Craig, then Lindsay, are moved to Evin prison in Tehran, per the parliamentary record.
- November 2025. A first hunger strike, in protest at the lack of progress.
- 29 December 2025. At a consular meeting, an Iranian official raises the case of the imprisoned stalker Richard Jan, calling him “a really important man.”
- 19 February 2026. The Revolutionary Court sentences the couple to 10 years for espionage.
- 9 and 18 May 2026. Craig, then Lindsay, begin a second hunger strike.
- 2 June 2026. An appeal is rejected at a hearing the couple are not permitted to attend.
- 15 July 2026. The family say Craig has been given an additional two years for talking to the press.
- 10 August 2026. The family confirm the couple have ended their hunger strike.
The espionage claim, and the treatment the family describes
Iranian authorities allege the couple “gathered information in multiple provinces” under the guise of tourism and research, and the judiciary’s news agency has claimed their connections with intelligence services of “hostile and Western nations” were confirmed. The Foremans deny it. So does the British government. The roadside interviews Iran read as espionage appear to have been Lindsay’s conference project, questions about happiness and purpose asked of strangers.
The clearest picture of their treatment sits in the record of a Westminster Hall debate on 21 May 2026, secured by Tony Vaughan, the Labour MP for Folkestone and Hythe, whose constituent is Lindsay’s son Joe Bennett. The court relied on so-called confessions produced by forcing Lindsay to sign documents in Farsi without interpretation and to fingerprint blank pieces of paper, the debate heard. She spent 56 days in solitary confinement and was interrogated for 30 consecutive days, blindfolded.
Craig was interrogated for 14 days and deliberately walked into walls. Neither had a lawyer at any point. UK officials were not permitted to attend the trial, which was conducted by a judge sanctioned by the UK, the US and the EU.
Conditions inside Evin are grim by the family’s own account. Wikipedia’s account of the case records Bennett describing overcrowded cells, extreme heat and metal bunks as long ago as September 2025. More recently the couple have been held in separate wings and, according to Iran International as relayed by the charity Hostage Aid, were barred from visiting each other for three weeks as a punishment for giving an interview to BBC World.
Hunger strikes, a secret appeal, two extra years
The first hunger strike, in November 2025, ended without a breakthrough. The second began on 9 May for Craig and 18 May for Lindsay, and it was darker in tone. The family said the couple had been left with no other option. The US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency told CBS News that Craig lost 35 pounds and Lindsay 30, and that Lindsay was suffering dizzy spells and tremors. A letter from relatives begging them to eat again was never delivered.
The appeal failed on 2 June, in secret. The family learned of it afterwards. The couple were not permitted to attend their own appeal hearing and had been asked to sign documents in Farsi they could not read, Joe Bennett told the Times of Israel. The case has since been referred to Iran’s Supreme Court, with no clear timeline.
Then, in July, came the additional sentence. Craig was told he was being taken to see his lawyer and was instead brought before a judge and given two more years for speaking to the press, with no lawyer, no translator and no chance to respond, Sky News reported. His son called the family “absolutely flabbergasted.” Two UN special rapporteurs, Mai Sato and Dr Alice Jill Edwards, had already said in June what they thought of the case as a whole, in a statement published by the UN human rights office:
“Lindsay and Craig Foreman should not be in prison. They appear to have been wrongfully detained, prosecuted on highly questionable grounds, and sentenced after proceedings that failed to meet basic fair trial guarantees.”
This week the family confirmed the couple have ended the strike, Sky News reported. Bennett’s verdict on what the past three months have done to them was blunt. “It wreaks havoc on your mind.”
The stalker in the middle: Richard Jan
The strangest thread in the case is an Iranian national serving a life sentence in a British prison. Richard Jan, once described as Britain’s worst stalker, was jailed in 2004 for a stalking campaign against 200 victims. His minimum tariff expired in August 2010 and he has spent 23 years in maximum-security prisons since, at an estimated cost of more than £900,000, The Independent reported. Iran has repeatedly asked for his return. The Parole Board refused his release to Iran in late 2024, a month before the Foremans were arrested.
The family believe his deportation is the “only avenue” to a release, not least after that consular meeting in December 2025 at which an Iranian official raised Jan’s case and complained he was not receiving his medication, according to The Independent’s timeline of the affair.
The government’s public position is a flat denial. There is “no truth whatsoever to the claims of a potential exchange arrangement,” a spokesperson said, warning that crediting the idea risks hindering other efforts. David Lammy, appearing on Sky News, left the door a crack open. “Those arrangements can be made,” he said, before declining to go into particulars.
Whitehall’s instinct is that silence does the work. Discretion is treated, as DigitalTreasure observed in the Palace’s handling of the King’s own affairs, as the real instrument of power. Whether that doctrine survives a case in which Iran is openly naming its price is the unanswered question in this file.
What happens next
The legal route now runs to Iran’s Supreme Court. The family’s legal team, which includes the lawyer Haydee Dijkstal, is adding the two-year extension to a formal complaint to the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, arguing the case meets three of the group’s criteria for arbitrary detention, Sky News reported.
The diplomatic route is harder to read. The couple were sentenced ten days before US and Israeli strikes opened the current war, CBS News reported, and their family has argued that holding them in Evin while bombs fall on Tehran amounts to using them as shields.
The campaign at home continues, run by Bennett with petitions, QR-coded placards and a steady run of broadcast interviews, competing for oxygen inside the same attention economy DigitalTreasure dissected when Perez Hilton’s livestream ended in a hospital bed.
Bennett says bringing people home from Iran takes “courage” and “political will,” and points to the 2022 releases of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Anoosheh Ashoori as proof it can be done. The minister who answered May’s debate offered a colder reading. “It is not always public pressure that is most effective in securing releases.”
Lindsay Foreman rode into Iran asking strangers what makes a good life. Iran’s answer was ten years in a cell. Her family is still waiting for a different one.
SOURCES
- Wikipedia, “Detention of Craig and Lindsay Foreman” — Confirmed the couple’s background (Channel 4 appearance, Brisbane conference), the arrest and transfer dates, and the BBC’s 19 February 2026 sentencing report. — Published: living article, revised through 2026 — Accessed: 10 August 2026
- UK Parliament Hansard, “Imprisonment of Craig and Lindsay Foreman in Iran” — Confirmed the treatment details (solitary confinement, Farsi documents, sanctioned judge, Evin transfers) and the minister’s “innocent tourists” position. — Published: 21 May 2026 — Accessed: 10 August 2026
- Hostage Aid, “Iran Bars Jailed British Couple from Seeing Each Other” — Confirmed the couple are held in separate wings of Evin and the three-week visit ban following their BBC World interview, per Iran International. — Published: not stated on page — Accessed: 10 August 2026
- CBS News, “Son of couple on hunger strike in Iran prison ‘desperately worried’ as he and his partner grow weak” — Confirmed the hunger strike start dates, the weight loss reported by HRANA, the sanctioned judge and the sentencing’s proximity to the US-Israeli strikes on Iran. — Published: 15 July 2026 — Accessed: 10 August 2026
- Times of Israel, “British couple held in Iran lose appeal against 10-year prison sentence” — Confirmed the appeal was rejected without the couple present and referred to Iran’s Supreme Court. — Published: early June 2026, exact date not stated — Accessed: 10 August 2026
- OHCHR, “UN experts warn British travellers wrongfully detained in Iran at grave risk” — Confirmed the UN experts’ statement, the rapporteurs’ names and their April communication to Iran. — Published: June 2026 — Accessed: 10 August 2026
- Sky News, “British man jailed with wife in Iran given additional sentence, family says” — Confirmed the extra two years, the false lawyer-meeting detail and the family legal team’s UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention position. — Published: 15 July 2026 — Accessed: 10 August 2026
- Sky News, “‘It wreaks havoc on your mind’: Son of British couple jailed in Iran on parents ending hunger strike” — Confirmed the couple have ended their hunger strike, breaking as of this article’s research. — Published: 10 August 2026 — Accessed: 10 August 2026
- The Independent, “Britain has spent almost £1m holding stalker at centre of prisoner swap debate” — Confirmed Richard Jan’s history, the cost of holding him, the government’s denial of an exchange and David Lammy’s comments. — Published: July 2026, exact date not stated — Accessed: 10 August 2026
- The Independent, “How an imprisoned stalker is linked to the arrest of Craig and Lindsay Foreman” — Confirmed the 29 December 2025 consular meeting, the late-2024 Parole Board refusal and Hamish Falconer’s 21 April 2026 Commons statement. — Published: July 2026, exact date not stated — Accessed: 10 August 2026
