Mrs Bleach: I want to see Peter before I die

Oceana Bleach, of Brompton-by-Sawdon, near Scarborough, wrote a heartfelt plea for help to Mr Straw shortly before he started his official visit to Asia.

In it she implored the Home Secretary to make a plea for clemency for her son who was jailed for life in February after being convicted of conspiracy to commit offences against the Indian Government.

He has already spent six years in a Calcutta prison for his part in the arms drop in West Bengal.

"Peter is my only child and I have not seen him now for five years," she wrote.

"At nearly 80, I am now too old to travel to India, but I desperately want to see him before I die."

Mrs Bleach, who has already written to Indian President Narayanan, was given new hope recently when the premier granted a personal pardon to five Russian pilots charged with the same offence as her son after intervention from President Vladimir Putin.

She hopes Mr Straw, currently in India, may be able to secure the same result, although she said she feared that should the Home Secretary only ask that Bleach's appeal be speeded up, it would still take 13 years for the appeal to be heard.

And British authorities have repeatedly refused to interfere in the Indian judicial process.

"I am, therefore, very doubtful of anyone's ability, however eminent, to expedite India's painfully slow legal process - not to mention the likelihood of my living that long."

Bleach wrote earlier this year that he feared he would languish in prison for up to a decade before any appeal came before the courts.

Referring to the recent freeing of British citizens being held in Liberia after British Government intervention, Mrs Bleach wrote: "I have always had faith in the ability of our government to protect its citizens, no matter where they may be.

"I realise that I, as a lone elderly woman, can do little to sway opinion. All I can do is to express, from the bottom of my heart, my desire to see my son home, free, before I die."

Picture - Oceana Bleach