British couple held in Iran begin hunger strike over detention

Britain’s leverage over Iran is being put to the test as Lindsay and Craig Foreman deepen a detention crisis with a hunger strike, a tactic that turns a diplomatic stalemate into a medical emergency. The East Sussex couple, both in their 50s, have been held in Tehran’s Evin Prison since January 2025, accused of espionage, a charge their family says they reject while insisting they entered Iran with valid visas, a licensed guide and a pre-approved itinerary.

The couple’s protest is aimed not only at their jailers but at the pressure points available to London: consular access, direct talks with Iranian officials, ambassadorial visits and public warnings. The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office has said it is deeply concerned and continues to raise the case directly with Iranian authorities, while Britain’s ambassador to Tehran has visited the pair in prison and helped facilitate family calls. Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper has also met the family, underlining how far the government has gone, and how little visible movement it has won.

The hunger strike has sharpened the stakes. In February, the Foremans said in a message from Evin Prison that they would begin refusing food on March 4, the 14-month mark of their detention. They said their imprisonment violated Iran’s own constitution, citing protections for dignity and a presumption of innocence. They also said they were summoned on January 24, 2025, blindfolded and taken to a dirty, furniture-less cell, held in solitary confinement for 56 days, and later told on July 29, 2025 that they had been convicted of espionage with no accompanying proof and no trial.

Their family says this is not the first time the couple has used hunger as a last resort. In November 2025, Lindsay Foreman told her son, Joe Bennett, during a brief call that not eating was “the only power” they had, and the family described the protest as a “cry out for help” after feeling let down by both the UK government and Iranian authorities. That earlier strike ended after assurances that they would be able to see each other and contact family.

Those assurances now look fragile. By mid-May 2026, relatives said phone access had been cut off for more than a week, and Bennett said he had not spoken to his mother for over a week and did not know whether she and Craig were safe. Sky News reported that the cutoff may have followed a media interview and that the ambassador’s prison visit had helped restore calls before they were severed again. The case sits inside a wider warning from the UK government that British and British-Iranian nationals face a significant risk of arrest or detention in Iran, where London’s options remain limited and every day in Evin makes the diplomatic cost harder to ignore.