Relieved to be home Bristol planespotters tell of prison ordeal

The two Bristol planespotters arrested in India have spoken of their relief at being home with their families.

Stephen Hampton, 46, of Keynsham, and Steven Ayres, 56, of St George, were arrested on suspicion of spying after they booked into a hotel room overlooking a runway at Indira Gandhi International Airport, in Delhi, last month.

The men, both railway workers, were charged with breaching section 20 of the Indian Telegraph Act.

They admitted the charge and were fined 25,000 rupees (£362) each when they appeared in court.

Mr Hampton and Mr Ayres spent two days under armed guard at their hotel before being moved to a detention centre for foreigners.

Mr Hampton said: "It's a great relief to be home. We are just glad to be back in the UK. We didn't believe we would be back in the UK until we touched down at Heathrow."

He said a cleaner at the hotel alerted security staff after seeing the equipment they had taken with them, which included a scanner, binoculars and cameras.

Mr Ayres said: "It wasn't actually clear at what stage we were arrested. We were questioned on the first night and I thought we would be home the following morning.

"On the Tuesday night a policeman was in the room with us all night.

Mr Hampton described the conditions in the Indian detention centre and said: "It was like moving from a five-star hotel into a minus-five-star hotel. There was only cold running water, basic washing facilities, no glass in the windows and we were on camp beds with blankets that hadn't been washed for ages. We stayed together and got through it. The other inmates were very helpful."

Mr Hampton's MP Dan Norris, whose Wansdyke constituency includes Keynsham, has been helping the men throughout their ordeal and met them at Heathrow Airport.

The first thing they did was go for a pint of beer before travelling to Bristol for a reunion with their families.

Mr Norris was in contact with the Foreign Office and Kinetic Avionics, the company that made the scanner, which gave £5,000 towards the men's legal fees.

The two families had to find £10,000 to pay legal and hotel costs.

Mr Hampton thought they might be jailed for 10 years for spying.

He said: "We thought we might be there forever. If we went into an Indian jail I don't think we would survive from the reports we heard about it."

Mr Ayres said: "We don't think we did anything illegal but we pleaded guilty because it was the quickest way home and the cheapest."

He said Indian authorities had difficulty understanding their hobby.

Mr Norris said: "Without question some people thought they have been completely daft but they were just in the wrong place at the wrong time."

Mr Hampton's mother Eileen Cock, 80, said the families would not have got through the three-week ordeal without Mr Norris' support.

Both men vowed to continue their hobby.

Mr Hampton said: "I've been doing it for 20 years without a problem and I am not going to stop."

The two friends even found time for some plane spotting in Bahrain on the way home.