FREE MY DADDY
WEE WILLIAM’S PLEA TO THERESA MAY
A TODDLER has led calls for Theresa May to help free the Chennai Six from their Indian jail hell.
Former paratrooper turned maritime security contractor Billy Irving, 37, was jailed for five years last January after Indian authorities accused him and five colleagues of possessing illegal weapons.
Yesterday, his two-year-old son William handed in a petition to Downing Street to mark the fourth year of his war-hero dad’s imprisonment.
The petition has nearly half a million signatures.
Billy’s fiancée Yvonne MacHugh, from Neilston, Renfrewshire, said: “This is a massive injustice and people need to be aware of the toll this has taken on the men in jail and the families in the UK.
“Billy has yet to spend a day at home with his son, who was born while he was in India. I have taken him to visit his dad in prison so Billy has only had a couple of hours with William.”
The men were working on an anti-piracy vessel in 2013 when they were detained by the Indian coastguard, who accused them of carrying firearms without permits.
Their paperwork was in order but a judge convicted them and sentenced them in 2016 to five years in a violent, overcrowded prison.
The legal case for the six has come to a standstill.
Yvonne said: “It is an outrage. The men were employed as security operators whose job was to protect commercial shipping from pirates in the Indian Ocean.
“They should be hailed as heroes, not stuck behind bars.”