UK – ITV, Feb. 12, 2026
Lindsay spoke about people she has met in the prison, including those arrested during recent protests in Iran, ITV News Global Security Editor Rohit Kachroo reports
British mum Lindsay Foreman has described the “psychological torture” she has experienced in an Iranian prison where she has been detained for more than a year on espionage charges.
During two phone conversations from Tehran’s notorious Evin prison, the 53-year-old from East Sussex told Global Security Editor Rohit Kachroo of her time in solitary confinement.
She spoke of the psychological torture of being imprisoned near her husband but with only occasional contact, the “multiple times” she has been told she was being released – and the “depressing” realisation it wasn’t going to happen.
Lindsay and her husband Craig were taken into custody during a motorcycle tour around the world in January 2025 – they were charged with espionage a month later.
The couple have been imprisoned ever since, and deny all charges against them. They are being held in the same prison where Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe was held.
“If I could do anything to change the situation here, I will do it, even if I’m at risk,” Lindsay said.
“So having this call, they are recorded … And there’s a risk that I will have my calls cut, I’ll be put in solitary confinement, I’ll have another file open on me. But I have to do something. I can’t sit and do nothing.”
Lindsay shared her experience of her time spent in “solitary confinement”, which she described as “a massive mental test”.
“The emotions are extreme. You know, the lows are really low and the highs when people get released … You know [it] is a bit of a journey.”
On her false hopes of being released, she said: “Literally, they’ve said the words: ‘You’re going to be released next week, you’re going to be’ – you know, even when they transported us from Kerman (a city in the south-east) to Tehran, we were on a commercial flight, we were wearing our own clothes, you know, there were no handcuffs, no blindfolds.
“We knew it was going to Tehran, but everybody, the guards at the Kerman prison, you know, said that this is, you know, this is release. The prosecutor that we’d had there said you’d be going to Tehran and onto the UK.”
But Lindsay and her husband were no closer to going home.
