A former soldier from Chester is living a never ending nightmare after learning he and five other British ex-servicemen must face a trial in India after all.

Ray Tindall, from The Crescent, Newton, and his colleagues were aboard an anti-pirate vessel when it was impounded by the Indian authorities in October 2013 after straying into their territorial waters.

Accused of illegally possessing weapons, the men have been stranded in India ever since even though all charges against them were quashed last July.

The stumbling block arose because of an appeal lodged by the Indian state but it was hoped the Indian Supreme Court would overrule.

Instead it has been decided the men have a case to answer with Ray, a former Army sniper, still unable to be reunited with his friends and family including his young daughter Lyra.

Ray Tindall
Ray Tindall

Ray, a former sergeant with the 1st Battalion The Royal Welsh and The 1st Battalion Yorkshire Regiment, had been held in the city of Chennai’s Puzhal jail.

To his relief he was released in March last year but does not have his passport and is forbidden from leaving the country.

His case was taken up by Chester’s former Tory MP Stephen Mosley and his Labour successor Chris Matheson MP was working in the background even before his election.

There was an apparent glimmer of hope when foreign secretary Philip Hammond visited India earlier this year where he raised the case of Ray Tindall and five other Brits.

On a trip to Urenco at Capenhurst, during the election campaign, Mr Hammond told The Chronicle: “We are on a different level with this now, I think, where very senior people in India are involved in the detail.”

And the former Chester resident, who lived in a cul-de-sac off Liverpool Road during the 1980s, added: “It is quite complex, but we’re doing everything we possibly can and feel reasonably confident. But the pace at which things happen in India is not always the pace at which one would look for them to happen.”