A Briton held captive in Nigeria for more than seven months is to stay in the country while medical treatment continues.

Ship’s captain Robin Hughes, 59, was one of 27 oil workers kidnapped when their supply vessel was hijacked in September.

Most of the crew were later released but Mr Hughes and fellow Briton Matthew Maguire remained hostages of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (Mend).

Mr Hughes’s wife Adina and 16-year-old daughter live in Brazil. He was handed to military officials in Nigeria last Sunday on health grounds.

His younger brother, Simon Hughes, 48, from Blackstone, near Hurstpierpoint, said his return had been delayed by about a week while he was treated for a foot infection.