Chef John Sender's life fell apart when he was thrown into a Pakistani jail for two years on "trumped up" drugs charges.

He was arrested at the airport, frogmarched to prison and handed a five-year sentence - and he had only been travelling to Pakistan to buy leather jackets.

But what seemed like a routine trip turned into a living nightmare for the 42-year-old Eastbourne man.

Telling his story for the first time since his release two months ago, Mr Sender said he travelled to Pakistan to buy jackets but was arrested on "bogus" drugs charges at the airport.

He was jailed in Karachi's notorious Landhi jail after refusing to pay officials £15,000. No drugs were ever found.

Mr Sender, originally from Liverpool, was given a five-year sentence but was deported on March 2 after his lawyers brought his case to the Pakistan Supreme Court.

He said he was freed after his lawyers put pressure on the court and claimed police wanted rid of him because he was "becoming a nuisance".

Now unemployed, he said the experience in Pakistan ruined him.

His story will be one of a series of cases highlighted on Thursday at the second British Victims' Day to raise awareness about the plight of Britons wrongly jailed abroad.

Relatives and friends of the jailed Britons will gather in the European Parliament office in Westminster for a Press conference at 2pm.

Mr Sender, speaking at his Eastbourne home, said police and officials in Pakistan preyed on visitors like him.

"It is all done to extort money. They do it to a lot of foreign businessmen but even some wealthy locals become targets.

"I would not plan a holiday to Pakistan and I would definitely not advise any business ventures or trips there."

Mr Sender told how a wealthy British gem dealer is still languishing in the same Pakistani prison after being blindfolded and tortured by police and forced to watch fellow inmates being beaten to death by doctors.

David Du Faur, 52, has been in jail in Karachi for three years awaiting trial on drugs trafficking charges and must wait for a judge to work through 5,000 pending trials.

Mr Sender claimed Mr Du Faur was also set up by corrupt officials.

Mr Du Faur, a father of four, is being backed by the group Fair Trials Abroad and the UK's deputy high commissioner in Karachi has made representations on his behalf.

Mr Sender said conditions in Landhi jail were horrendous, adding: "The sanitation is such that after a while we got a form of scabies all over our bodies.

"Everyone had dysentery and there were 260 people crammed into huge barrack-like cells meant for 90 and without toilets.

"David is on some form of medication which makes him sleep all day. His nerves are shot and he has extremely high blood pressure."

Mr Sender said Mr Du Faur, who has 20 years' experience in the gem trade, has had to sell his large home in Croydon to fight his legal battle and his wife has had to move in with her brother.

Mr Du Faur has four children, girls aged 12 and eight and boys aged 19 and 27. His nightmare began on June 30, 1998, when he was arrested at his hotel room in the Holiday Inn in Karachi on suspicion of being involved in drug trafficking.

Mr Sender said police demanded money from Mr Du Faur and when he refused they blindfolded him and beat him in a bid to extract a confession.

He was kept in jail after a fellow gem dealer, a Pakistani national, with whom he had been trading and who was arrested for drugs, implicated him in a trafficking plot.

Mr Sender said: "This happens all the time. The authorities bring in one person for one crime and then force them to implicate others. Arrests mean money for the anti-narcotics force.

"Also it is common knowledge that when drugs are seized they are stored and used to convict others.

"It is not uncommon for one 5kg seizure of heroin to secure 20 or more convictions."

Mr Sender said when Mr Du Faur appeared in court for the first time the judge demanded to see evidence of the drugs, 760kg of cannabis, but police said they had destroyed it.

Mr Sender said he had now being granted bail by the Supreme Court following the intervention of the deputy high commissioner, who concluded that: "Mr Du Faur's continued detention is now clearly unjustifiable and illegal."

But Mr Du Faur remains in prison as all procedures "have not been finalised".

Mr Sender said: "And when he does get out on bail he must await trial and with only one judge in the special narcotics court and, 5,000 cases pending, he is likely to have to wait for up to four years."

Mr Sender told of people being beaten to death by guards and the doctors.

He said: "The dead and mutilated are then buried inside the prison in holes where sand has been dug out for building.

"Inmates spend the day sweeping sand with a small brush on all fours, though if you have money you can get better treatment."

Mr Sender said a millionaire Pakistani businessman, who owned a string of fish factories, "had the run of the prison" but was spending 100,000 rupees a month, about £1,500, for the privilege.

"I spent two years with Mr Du Faur. He is innocent. He is an educated man and a gem expert. He was not in financial trouble and did not need to get involved in drugs."

Other cases to be featured at Thursday's meeting include those of 57-year-old David Chell, from Stoke, facing a death sentence in Malaysia for alleged drug trafficking, and England football supporter Mark Forrester, who was arrested in Belgium during the Euro 2000 championships.

Another case will be that of Manjit Basuta, the nanny jailed for 25 years in the United States for killing a baby in her care.