Relatives' battles 'Too often you feel like someone to be handled'

Gurpreet Singh Johal is sitting in a London hotel lobby the night before he is due to meet David Lammy.

- Patrick Wintour

This will be the fifth UK foreign secretary he will have seen in his quest to secure the release of his brother, Jagtar, who has been detained in Indian prisons for seven years, with the case making virtually no progress.

He can rate each foreign secretary's strengths and weaknesses. Jeremy Hunt, whom he met along with Jagtar's wife, "took me seriously, and registered at that stage, after two years in jail, my brother had not had a fair trial. But he did not take it beyond that."

Dominic Raab "would not have a meeting. He just wanted a trade deal." Liz Truss "was sort of forced to have a meeting in 2022, and then she became PM and did nothing".

And then: "James Cleverly - it was the worst meeting of the lot - since all he said was that he would do everything in Jagtar's best interest. But he said he would not call for his release."

The argument of the Foreign Office was that critical comments on the domestic laws of another state could limit the detained Briton's consular access.

This experience - a cycle of hope, then hopes dashed, and repeat - is familiar to other families of those detained abroad. The Foreign Office and British consular services are there to help incarcerated Britons and their relatives. Yet many complain of feeling isolated, forced to contend with punitive or highly politicised justice systems, dire prison conditions, or no access to lawyers. Now relatives, campaigners and MPs are calling for Labour to up its game and usher in a step-change in the handling of Britons unlawfully held overseas.

Cultural defensiveness The case of Jagtar Singh Johal, 37, from Dumbarton, is particularly galling. He was arrested in connection with targeted killing cases in Punjab in 2016 and 2017 - allegedly part of a conspiracy by the Khalistan Liberation Force, an organisation of which Indian police say he was a member.