Phone calls between parents and children are a normal daily ritual in many homes.
Yet the three-beep dial is something entirely different to Joe Bennett.
It is the lifeline between him and his mother Lindsay Foreman, who was sentenced alongside her partner Craig last month to 10 years in Tehran’s notorious Evin Prison.
The British couple, both 53 from East Sussex, are serving time in ‘rat-infested’ and overcrowded conditions for something they are adamant they never did: spying for their country and for Israel.
The couple now face new threats as US-Israeli missile strikes rain down on Iran, causing widespread destruction.
Since the decade-long sentence was handed down, Joe has noticed the couple’s plummeting mental health during their daily phone calls, which range from two minutes to 20.
Yet sometimes they are allowed no minutes at all as part of a morale-bashing game Joe believes the prison is playing.
‘Every day that passes is another day that chips away at all that resilience they have built up,’ Joe, from Folkestone, Kent, tells the Daily Mail.
Lindsay and Craig Foreman (pictured), both 52, were arrested in Kerman, southern Iran, on January 3, as they embarked on a motorcycle trip around the world to Australia
Joe Bennett, Ms Foreman’s son, who has been campaigning for their freedom for more than a year
‘Some days they can’t speak and there’s just an inability to function. When your mum is telling you that she’s only getting out of bed to have phone calls, you are worried sick.’
The situation has become so dire that Joe is planning to appeal to Donald Trump to save his family, having felt ‘abandoned’ by the UK, who he claims has provided very little support.
He is expected to travel to Washington DC this week, where he will address politicians and seek Trump’s help to secure their release, The Telegraph reported.
‘My government has let me down. They are British citizens who appear to have been abandoned. They are in real and immediate danger,’ Joe said.
Lindsay, a business coach, and Craig, a carpenter, were arrested on January 3 in Kerman, southern Iran, last year while passing through the country on a round-the-world motorcycle trip, ending in Australia.
The couple set off from the UK in November 2024, having taken up motorcycling a few years earlier in memory of Lindsay’s brother, Ashley, who died in a motorcycle accident in 1993.
Despite having Iranian visas, a guide and an approved itinerary, the Foreman’s were sentenced and imprisoned on claims they were spying for the UK and Israel.
Both the couple’s lawyers and the UK Government have argued their case lacks legal basis – with Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper calling it ‘completely appalling and totally unjustifiable’ – yet their bail applications have been dismissed.
They were even prevented from defending themselves at a court hearing in October, leaving them to feel like they are being used as diplomatic leverage rather than being rightly convicted criminals.
The family feels their obstruction to justice fits into a wider context of mind games, with Joe believing the prison is intentionally trying to chip away at the couple’s morale, both through their treatment and conditions.
This includes the last-minute pulling of their entitled spousal visits within the prison, which they are supposed to do once a week rather than the current once a month.
The couple (pictured), from east Sussex, had intended to travel from Armenia to Pakistan via Iran when they were intercepted by authorities and later charged with espionage
‘They build themselves up for a week to two weeks to see each other and it is just pulled,’ Joe, who has given up a job in tech sales to fully campaign for the couples release, explains.
‘They have rarely spent a day apart in the last 10 years. They are frequently told to go back blindfolded to their cell after being given the hope they will see each other. No meeting and no explanation. That’s mental torture. It’s designed to break people into submission.
‘They’ve got nothing but the four walls around them and their mind.’
The couple are being held in separate wings of the prison where the British-Iranian national Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe was detained over allegations she was plotting to topple the Iranian Government.
Joe’s fears extend to his mother’s safety within the overcrowded prison, which she is currently sharing with tens of women, who are mostly political activists and speak ‘little to no English’. Many of them were arrested during the protests in January.
‘She’s in danger because there are certain people within the prison system who have grown up with a regime, and genuinely have a hatred towards the West. They have animosity and hatred towards my mum for no reason other than she’s British,’ he says.
‘She is living in a hostile environment in a cramped cell and feels threatened. I’ve heard people shouting in the background numerous times, going wild.
‘Firstly, you can’t understand what they are arguing about so you don’t know if it is over you. You don’t know if they are trying to attack you or defend you. You’re scared because it’s animosity and you’ve got no idea what’s going on.
British-Iranian national Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, pictured with her husband Richard Ratcliffe, was detained in Iran over allegations she was plotting to topple the Iranian Government
‘That must be hell on earth.’
This reality is shared by Craig, who is in an overflowing cell that includes other foreign nationals and Iranian convicts.
‘There are some serious hardened criminals that are in these prisons. There are people who have different views, opinions and don’t talk it out like people normally do,’ Joe says.
‘Craig has seen a lot of violence and crime. It is a place that in itself is a danger.’
This adds to the dire conditions, including rats creeping into Lindsay’s bed.
The family claims they were discouraged by the Government to reach out to the family of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe last year, who said the couple would be put in danger and rather advised ‘quiet diplomacy’.
‘We were actively warned against reaching out to ex-detainees of Iran and their families, including the likes of Richard Ratcliffe, because they said it would put my mum and Craig at risk,’ Joe says.
He continues: ‘That was the genuine advice they gave us. And we were like, why would you not want to offer that as a support, rather than shutting it down and trying to isolate? Surely you would want the support of other families to navigate something very niche and difficult.’
Two women are pictured walking amidst the debris at the Evin Prison’s – where the Foreman’s are being detained – visitor room after Israeli air strikes in 2025
The family initially followed the State’s advice, but eventually contacted Richard Ratcliffe, who is the husband of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, last June after the couple was moved to Evin Prison.
And mere days after Israel struck the prison, killing at least 71 people, the Government ‘lost’ the couple.
‘Evin Prison was being bombed and the Foreign Office can’t tell us where they are. I’m like, “where the hell are my parents?”,’ Joe says.
The family lost contact and it was only after a month that they were told by the British Embassy in Iran that their whereabouts were unknown.
‘The embassy essentially lost my parents. That was the last straw’, he adds.
The family, who have started a Change petition, subsequently went against the Government’s advice and reached out to ex-detainees.
Joe adds: ‘Unfortunately history suggest the Foreign Office aren’t very good at getting innocent people out of this position.
‘You would have thought they had learned their lesson but I’m yet to see it.’
Iranian-British national Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe was detained in Iran for nearly six years after she was accused of trying to overthrow the Iranian regime.
Yet she has been widely regarded as having been used as a pawn for diplomatic leverage.
Her husband Richard relentlessly campaigned for her release, which Joe believes made him an ‘unpopular man’ with the Foreign Office.
This included two hunger strikes to have his wife freed from Iran, taking place at the steps of Number 10 Downing Street to deliver a 70,000-signature petition calling on the Government to do more.
It is a reality Joe now endures after campaigning for the couple’s freedom for over a year.
Joe called on the UK Government to act and secure the couple’s release, adding: ‘They’re not political figures. They are not activists. They are just ordinary people.’
He said: ‘You now have two innocent UK citizens who have been sentenced to 10 years.
‘What diplomatic levers do you take to get them released and take a stand?’
However Joe is doubtful on the Government’s success of being able to free the couple, adding: ‘The last 14 months haven’t given me any confidence that anything progressive is going to happen.
‘But I’d love to be proven wrong.’
The true weight of this will be felt by the couple, Joe says, as their morale will continue to deteriorate as the days spent imprisoned clock over.
He, whose family has started a GoFundMe fundraiser, adds: ‘My mum and Craig are expecting big things of the Government and if they fail to deliver on those, they will absolutely crash.’
A spokesperson for the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office told the Daily Mail: ‘The welfare of British nationals detained in Iran is a priority for this government and continues to be during the current situation in the Middle East.
‘We have been clear that Craig and Lindsay’s sentences are completely appalling and totally unjustifiable, and we will continue to pursue this case relentlessly with the Iranian government and will do so until we see Craig and Lindsay Foreman safely returned to the UK and reunited with their family.
‘We continue to provide consular assistance to them and their family.’
