A family's fear 'GET OUR DAD Home'

ROBERT PETHER'S FAMILY ARE FIGHTING FOR HIS FREEDOM

- Jacqui Lang

Last month, Sydney engineer Robert Pether marked his 49th birthday in a cramped Iraq jail cell, surrounded by 30 prisoners.

No cake, no presents and little hope; just quick phone messages of love from his desperately worried wife and children, a continent away.

It's the third birthday the anguished father has spent behind bars. Sentenced to five years on a fraud conviction, he maintains his innocence.

For his wife Desree, the pain of being separated from "soulmate" Robert is almost too much to bear.

"Staying strong for our kids, who miss their dad dreadfully, is hard. I am broken," Desree tells New Idea from their home in central Ireland. "On Robert's birthday, we got to speak to him on the phone briefly, and tried our best to make him feel special."

Desree admits she and their three children, Nala, 11, Oscar, 18, and Flynn, 20, "sometimes run out of things to tell him".