A VETERAN who led the campaign to have six British servicemen released from an Indian prison is today toasting their aquittal.

In October 2013 35 private security men protecting ships from piracy were scooped out of the Indian Ocean and imprisoned, first for carrying illegally taxed fuel and later on gun importing charges.

Amongst their number were Britons Billy Irving, 37, Nick Dunn, 31, John Armstrong, 30, Nicholas Simpson, 47, Ray Tindall, 42, and Paul Towers, 54, all of the Parachute or Yorkshire Regiments.

What followed was a complicated case of legal wrangling in which the charges were quashed and then reinstated by a lower court, the men eventually handed five year sentences which would have run until 2020.

Thanks in part to the work of Bracknell resident David McMullen however, who part coordinates the Chennai6 campaign for Forces Online, the Madurai bench of the High Court in Chennai released the men on Monday.

The Meadow Way resident said: "They were released from prison today, and with the help of the Foreign Office they will be home soon.

"It is fantastic. It is a day we thought would thought would perhaps never come. It is amazing.

"You only have to see the reactions of the families."

The 33 year-old, who runs a property maintenance company, served in Afghanistan and currently uses his legal training to help veterans who cannot afford legal support.

He is now looking to assist in the case of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a British woman jailed in Iran over claims she was plotting to overthrow the regime.