Families of the the Chennai Six hand petition to 10 Downing Street

Families of six British seamen, who've become known as the Chennai Six, are stepping up the campaign to free them.

This follows the fourth anniversary of their arrest in India in 2013.

One of the six seamen is John Armstrong, a former soldier from Wigton, Cumbria.

Relatives will be lobbying MPs today, and will also be handing in a petition to 10 Downing Street demanding their release.

The men were working on and an anti-piracy vessel to protect shipping from Somalian pirates.

They were detained by the Indian coastguard which accused them of carrying firearms without permits.

Despite their paperwork - issued by the British Government - being in order, a judge still convicted them.

They were sentenced in 2016 to five years in what is reported to be a violent, overcrowded prison.

The campaign to overturn the sentence has had the support of Prince Charles, Prince Harry, Joanna Lumley, and the cast of Emmerdale and Coronation Street.

MPs from each of the men's constituencies will be present at the lobby along with family members.

John Armstrong's five-year-old nephew Josh Thomlinson, who has not seen his uncle in over four years, will deliver the petition alongside the two-year-old son of another detainee.

The petition contains 405,000 signatures.