Outrage as Yorkshire ex-soldiers are jailed in India on anti-piracy mission

An MP has called the sentences and those handed to four other former servicemen a “miscarriage of justice”.

Ian Lavery, Labour MP for Wansbeck, said he will continue to campaign for the men who have gone through what he called “years of hell”.

They were security guards on a US-owned ship when they were arrested in October 2013 on illegal weapons charges.

There were hopes that the latest legal hearings in India would see them free to return to the UK.

But instead they have been jailed for five years.

Mr Lavery’s Northumberland constituent Nick Dunn is among the six, along with Paul Towers from Yorkshire, and Nicholas Simpson, from Catterick, North Yorkshire.

Mr Lavery said: “This verdict will have come as a hammer blow to Nick Dunn and the other men detained in India coming only a matter of months after a court had quashed all of the charges.

“The men and their families will be distraught at this news with all noises coming out of the courts in the last few days and weeks pointing towards them returning home in the near future after years of hell.

“Sadly this bizarre judgment, charging the former British servicemen with the maximum penalty for handling arms, means the nightmare continues.

“My thoughts this morning are with the men, their families and friends whose worst fears will this morning have been realised by the judgment.

“I will continue to work with Nick’s family to fight for his release and return to the UK and am seeking urgent discussions on the way forward and seeking an early resolution to this miscarriage of justice.”

They were working for US maritime company AdvanFort providing anti-piracy protection when their ship - MV Seaman Guard Ohio, which had a crew of 35 - was detained and weapons were found.

In the following months the charges were dropped, but the Indian authorities appealed against the decision and the men were detained in India.

The authorities have now won their case.

A Foreign Office spokesman said: “Our staff in India and the UK have been in close contact with all six men since their arrest to provide support to them and their families, including attending court.

Ministers have also raised this case at the highest levels, pressing for delays to be resolved.

“We recognise what a difficult time this is for those involved. There is now a 90-day window to appeal and we will continue to provide consular assistance.

“However, we cannot interfere in another country’s judicial process.”

Yvonne MacHugh, the partner of Scot Billy Irving, another of the jailed men, previously started a petition on Change.org - which attracted the support of tens of thousands of people - saying the men had been ‘’wrongly arrested and imprisoned by Indian authorities while working to protect ships from pirate attacks’’.

She has visited her partner in India and the couple now have a 10-month-old son together, whom he has met but not yet had the chance to get to know properly.

Ms MacHugh said her partner used to serve in the Parachute Regiment and had been working hard to make money for his family after leaving the Army.

Speaking on Monday, she said: “After two long years of fighting to get my partner Billy home I’m devastated with today’s verdict. For the next five years our son won’t have a father at home.

“Billy has passed on to me all of the evidence that we couldn’t mention while the trial was going on. I intend to release this to the media so that the public can see that the boys did nothing wrong, that everything was legal and that this has been a miscarriage of justice.

“Nearly 300,000 people have signed my petition calling for the UK Government to help bring the boys home. I want to know what David Cameron is going to do - will he get these boys home or let these six ex-British soldiers, who gave so much to our country, spend five years in an Indian prison for something they didn’t do?”