Joe Bennett never wanted his mother and stepfather, Lindsay and Craig Foreman, to go to Iran on their round-the world motorbike ‘trip of a lifetime’.

He asked them not to. The Foreign Office advised against travel to the perilous nation, too, warning that those who ventured there were at risk of arrest, detention and a death sentence.

‘I gave my thoughts,’ says Joe. ‘I said, “Are you sure about this? I’m not trying to influence your decision but why do it when the advice is not to go? Isn’t there a way of just getting to the next destination by skipping that part?”

‘Mum said, “No, this is what I want to do.”’

Three days after entering Iran on New Year’s Day, Lindsay, a ‘free-spirited’ life coach, and her husband Craig, a carpenter, who are both 52, were arrested on charges of espionage.

Joe, 31, who loves his mother dearly, did not speak to her again for 213 days.

Just over two weeks ago, on August 28, there were reports his parents had been ‘suddenly whisked’ to a court hearing in Tehran with a ‘state-appointed lawyer they had only just met’, but Joe doesn’t know the details or even the charges they face.

Human rights lawyers have advised him to expect Lindsay and Craig to be sentenced to as long as ten years in jail.

Joe Bennett never wanted his mother and stepfather, Lindsay and Craig Foreman, pictured, to go to Iran on their round-the world motorbike ‘trip of a lifetime’

‘I’ve been told that’s more than likely, then the sentence is negotiated down as the Iranian government uses them as leverage [against the UK]. It’s not easy to take. Even the death penalty isn’t off the cards.

‘I don’t believe in my heart of hearts that’s going to happen, but your mind does go there.

‘There are times you get angry,’ he says. ‘You think, “Why, why, why did you do it?” I know some people say the choice they made is idiotic and selfish. Of course I get that. When I first heard they’d been detained, all those things came into my head: “F***ing hell, Mum, why did you go there? What for? Why?” But I can’t dwell on it. What’s happened has happened. They went there and they’ve been detained.

‘I miss them both dearly. I miss my mum untold amounts. She feels an awful amount of guilt about what’s happening. When we spoke [in August, seven months after their arrest], she broke down when she heard my voice.

‘I tried to put on a brave face because I didn’t know how long I was going to be able to speak to her, and I thought if we were both sobbing we wouldn’t be able to say anything to each other.

‘So, with a tear in my eye, I kind of said, “Look Mum, just so you know, I love you. We all love you. We’re doing everything we can to make this right.”

‘She spoke about being moved [after they’d been detained] by plane and kind of joked that it was like something you see in the movies. She said, “It’s unbelievable what’s happening.”

‘Mum couldn’t keep a secret. They’re not spies. They’re not political players. They’re not criminals. Mum is a free spirit. She sees the world through a different set of eyes. She believes, regardless of location, culture, background, we are all the same. We’re human beings.

‘Her whole thing is about connection. She says, even if you can’t speak the language, it’s as simple as putting your hand over your heart and having a look in their eyes. There’s nothing Mum or Craig have done to warrant what they’re going through.’

When Joe spoke to his mother last month, she was being held in the particularly grim, fly-infested Qarchak women’s prison near Tehran in an unsanitary, overcrowded cell, measuring just 13m sq, with ten other prisoners.

She slept on a metal bed frame with no mattress and survived on a daily diet of rice and gristle, with little water and no respite from the 40 degree temperatures.

Craig, meanwhile, languished in the capital’s infamous central prison, Fashafouyeh, with 21 inmates in his cell.

‘Neither of these prisons are exactly the Hilton. There’s drug use and, while I don’t know the ins and outs of why the people are in there, they are criminals, murderers potentially.

‘My parents are both in their 50s so they’re not young bucks any more. They’ve lost a lot of weight and are struggling to walk. The community in the prison were looking after Mum, giving her the odd piece of fruit and veg, but I’m not sure how long this generosity is going to last.’

Joe Bennett is taking time off from his career as a sales manager to campaign for his mother and stepfather’s release

Between them, the couple have an extended family. Craig has children Chelsea, 30, and Kieran, 27, from a previous relationship, and elderly parents who are both in their 80s. In addition to Joe, Lindsay has another son, Toby, 19, and a 78-year-old mother.

None of them had heard from Craig for three months until he had a meeting with the British ambassador last week.

Joe has not spoken to his mother since that call last month. Instead, he relies on voice messages recorded on fellow inmates’ phones and the occasional email Lindsay is able to send.

The information he receives is scant and contradictory. He tells me he heard his mother was in solitary confinement, but then ‘heard Mum’s voice in a room with other people’.

‘It’s the uncertainty, the not knowing what’s going on, that’s the worst thing for us, mentally,’ he says. ‘Your mind runs away with you. You start to think, “How are they, where are they, what, what, what?” ’

Joe breathes deeply to stem the tears as we talk. A thoroughly decent, deeply caring young man, he is taking time off from his career as a sales manager to campaign for his mother and stepfather’s release. He tells me sleep ‘isn’t great’ and that he has ‘highs and lows’.

‘When you do sleep you have a moment of waking up and being normal and then, within a minute or so, you’re like, “Oh, shit”.

‘It’s like a weight I’ve never, ever experienced – like a tremendously big hole that’s in my heart. That’s what it feels like.’ He puts his hand on his chest. ‘We’re a close family and they were the glue that held us together.’

His brother Toby, an undergraduate, is also ‘struggling’, while his grandmother, whose memory is not what it once was, ‘thinks about them all the time’.

‘She sees them on the news and doesn’t quite understand what’s going on,’ says Joe. ‘I’ll tell her what’s happening but I’m not too sure how much she remembers. She’ll keep asking multiple times a day. It is incredibly tough for her and for Craig’s parents, who are both in their 80s.

‘There’s a real worry that my mum and stepdad may not get to see their parents again, given they’re likely to be charged and sentenced to ten years.’

His eyes darken in despair: ‘I spoke to Mum every day. Now I connect to her by looking at the moon. She told me she was able to see the moon, so months ago I wrote to her saying any time you look at the moon and you’re able to see it, I’m looking at it, too.

‘I said that to them both. I just thought the moon was present in both of our skies so it gives me that sense of connection with her. I look at it now every night.’

This interview with Joe, from his home near Folkestone, Kent, has been postponed several times before we finally speak. The Foreign Office does not want the family to publicly campaign for Lindsay and Craig, he says. Joe wanted to ‘speak out straight away’ when they disappeared in early January. The Foreign Office advised against this, recommending ‘quiet diplomacy’, and some members of the family felt this was wise. They asked him to hold fire until Craig, who no one had spoken to for three months, made contact on September 2.

Last time Joe spoke to Lindsay before her arrest she said, ‘I’m absolutely loving it. The people here are amazing. It’s a beautiful country. Don’t believe everything you hear on the news’

The whole family was hoping for some clarity when they met with Foreign Office staff last week, just days before Angela Rayner resigned and Keir Starmer began playing musical chairs with his Cabinet. The meeting amounted to little more than a chat about the captives’ conditions and how they were coping, says Joe. ‘I can’t be critical of the Foreign Office’s support for us – we’re in contact a lot – but I can be critical of their actions, or lack of action.

‘It wasn’t the Foreign Office that told us they went to court the other week, we found out from people on the ground. That was deeply concerning. If they’re not aware of what’s happening, how fair will the trial be? They could just be taken out and sentenced tomorrow.’

Joe says the most senior person they’ve spoken to at the Foreign Office is Hamish Falconer, the 39-year-old Labour MP for Lincoln, who has served as the Parliamentary Under-Secretary for the Middle East, Afghanistan and Pakistan for 14 months.

‘This is no disrespect to the people working on the case, but I want to meet the Foreign Secretary,’ says Joe. ‘My feeling is that until we’re at the level of Keir Starmer communication with Iran, we won’t be taken seriously. I believe it’s my role to make sure the government is doing everything it can.

‘We didn’t hear from our parents or have a sniff of what was happening to them for six months, until we started this campaign. Four weeks later we had that phone call. Was that phone call always going to happen? Who knows, but it felt as if the campaign made a difference.’

Joe says ‘the tipping point’ to go public came in June when Kerman Prison, where their parents were about to be transferred to, was bombed amid escalating tensions in the Middle East.

‘When they went to Iran in January it was six months prior [to the recent conflict]. They got their visas and arranged for a tour guide, recommended to them by people who had travelled through Iran. Let’s not forget four million people travelled there last year.

‘But when the place your parents are supposed to be being transferred to is bombed and you can’t get any confirmation of their whereabouts you start torturing yourself. I was like, “What the hell. I can’t stay silent. This isn’t right. People need to know they’re out there.” ’

Craig and Lindsay were in Iran as part of a psychology research project, asking people what constitutes a good life. This pursuit of ‘a good life’ had long pre-occupied his mother who gave up a successful career in the corporate world in her 30s to seek out ‘what life was about’.

Joe says it ‘hasn’t always been rainbows and roses’. Joe, for example, was born shortly after Lindsay’s beloved older brother Ashley died in a motorcycle accident – a tragedy that left Lindsay struggling with her mental health.

She and Craig, who should be celebrating their tenth wedding anniversary next year, travelled across Europe before featuring in Channel 4’s A New Life In The Sun when they moved to Spain to escape the rat race in 2019.

Joe says his mum, who has ‘always had this tenacity, is probably the visionary and Craig’s the person who keeps her grounded’.

Those who know Lindsay describe her as a ‘force of nature’.

During their grand tour the Foremans were, according to their social media, ‘gathering stories and messages of hope and sharing them to spread positivity and shine a light on what is great about the human race’.

Lindsay was going to present her findings at a conference in Brisbane, Australia, uploading progress reports and photographs along the way.

Joe said, ‘I miss my mum untold amounts. She feels an awful amount of guilt about what’s happening’. Pictured: The mother and son when Lindsay was 21 years old

‘I don’t think it was a midlife crisis, but it’s a midlife something,’ says Joe. He shakes his head. ‘Posting videos and pictures from a high risk country wasn’t the best decision. It made it easier for her to be tracked – 100 per cent. But I suppose at that point, she was enjoying her time there.

‘The last time I spoke to her was around January 2. She said, “I’m absolutely loving it. The people here are amazing. It’s a beautiful country. Don’t believe everything you hear on the news.”

‘The communication stopped on the third. Craig had spoken to his mum to say they were embarking on the last leg of the journey but that the signal wasn’t going to be the best because they were going through mountain regions.

‘Day one then day two went by. Then day three and four. The fear starts to set in. After five or six days had passed, the Foreign Office said they were going to class it as an official missing persons’ case. That’s when the panic sets in.’ Joe looks truly despondent. It was eventually confirmed his parents were being detained on January 27.

‘There are obviously going to be people who call them idiots and say they’re stupid and they shouldn’t have gone, but that doesn’t mean this is just… I get angry. I get upset. I get emotional. I get sad.

‘It’s normally at night when you’re on your own that it gets quite bad. Something will trigger a memory and you start to miss silly little things, like her laugh, her crazy bad jokes.

‘But whenever I get dark thoughts, I just picture giving them a hug when they get back and throw that out to the universe.

‘Mum’s said she can’t wait for me to give her a big squeeze because I’m told I give good hugs.

‘Love outweighs everything, right? They will come home. They will be okay.’