YORK air enthusiast Andy Jenkins was today flying back to Greece to plead his innocence on charges of accessing state secrets.

Andy, 32, along with 11 other British "plane spotters", was arrested at Kalamata air base in November last year and held in prison for almost six weeks after officials accused them of spying.

They must now return to Kalamata, where their trial is due to begin on Wednesday. A verdict is expected within two or three days.

Andy's sister, Adele Yon, said: "He's very confident that he has done nothing wrong.

"Everyone in the family is very worried, but he won't let us worry too much. He insists he's innocent, and so do they all."

The group members were originally charged with gathering information to pass on to an enemy of Greece - a crime which carries a maximum prison sentence of 25 years.

But that was reduced to a single "misdemeanour" charge of illegal information collection, which has a maximum penalty of five years, or a hefty fine.

The 12 were allowed to return to Britain in December last year after paying bail of more than £9,000 each, but knew they would have to return to Greece for the trial.

Many of them have gone into debt since their arrest because of their bail money and their legal bill, which has already topped £3,000 each.

Their defence will claim that the secret information they were accused of gathering is freely available in books and on the Internet.

Defence lawyer Ioannis Zacharias said he hoped to get the charges dropped, and would be calling expert witnesses from the air force.

The group has always denied taking photographs in restricted areas, and say they only wrote down numbers from planes because of their interest in plane spotting.

Lawyers have had to try to explain the hobby to Greek authorities as it is not a widely-recognised pastime in the country.

Updated: 11:54 Monday, April 22, 2002