A YOUNG mum is pleading with the Government to rescue her father from his Moroccan jail cell so he can see his grandchild for the first time.

Leanne Saxby was six months pregnant when she last saw her father, Greg, as he set sail for the Mediterranean in January, 1998.

More than 16 months on the 21-year-old mum is still waiting to introduce her little son Dylan to his grandfather for the first time.

For the past 18 months Eastbourne mechanic Greg, 41, and his friend Paul Humble, 38, have been imprisoned in a squalid Moroccan jail.

They were sentenced to ten years behind bars and fined £52,000 each for allegedly smuggling cannibis worth £7 million into the country.

But the two men have proclaimed their innocence throughout claiming their conviction to be wrong and their trial, carried out without interpeters, a farce.

The Argus told on Friday how Greg and Paul had ended a 26 day hunger strike aimed at provoking action towards their release from the cell they share with 15 other foreign inmates.

Their families have kept up a fervent campaign for their release.

Devoted daughter Leanne, of Cade Street, Eastbourne, has taken some comfort in the news her father and Paul had ended their hunger strike after hearing that the Argus had highlighted their plight.

Leanne said: "I'm just so relieved they have come off this hunger strike because it had been going on for so long.

"Every day I was worried how they were coping and just thinking of them in the prison with no food.

"When I told them that the Argus was following the story and the BBC were thinking of sending a crew out to do a documentary the story they agreed to come off the strike and now things are at last looking up."

Leanne and 13-month-old Dylan are now waiting for the day Greg returns home to hold his grandson for the first time.

She said: "Dad's never seen Dylan. He knows he's been born and he can't wait to see him and that's just made him all the more determined to get out.

"I've tried to talk to Dylan about his grandad and where he is but he's a bit too young to understand.

"But I have his picture up everywhere so he's never forgotten."

When Greg, who lived in Seaside, Eastbourne, left for what he thought would be an "easy job" delivering boats to Mediterranean ports, he was a jolly character, 6ft 2ins tall and weighing a healthy 14-and-a-half stones.

Now he weighs just ten-stones and has suffered from the rigours of his life behind bars. His head and body are shaved to stop the lice that plague the prisoners in the Rabat jail.

Leanne said: "The conditions out there are dreadful. They have to pay for everything, even the bed they sleep on and their food.

"Dad still seems to be in quite good spirits despite everything though. He always comes across as a very strong person but I know deep down he's just a big softy and this whole thing is affecting him badly."

In a letter, Greg told how prison guards had allowed them a rare treat of watching television and the ardent Chelsea fan had caught an Italian Serie A match.

As well as Leanne and Paul's parents David and Joan, Greg also has his future wife waiting for him.

He was due to marry Louise Curtis, a barmaid he met two years ago in a Polegate pub, last September.

Foreign Office officials have now stepped up efforts to monitor the situation in Morocco although no action as yet been taken.

Greg and Paul's families hope to visit the pair in prison later this year.

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