The family of Alexia Stewart, jailed for ten years for possessing drugs in India, were planning a Champagne celebration today after she was freed on appeal.

Miss Stewart, 29, and her boyfriend Gary Carter, 30, had always denied the charges and accused police of falsely implicating them.

Now, after spending more than a year behind bars, she is free to fly home to her family.

The two were convicted in December by a special court. Until the appeal hearing, they were imprisoned in Aguada jail in Goa, on the south-west coast of India. Her father Philip, 65, who is director of human sciences at St Anne's College, Oxford University, has campaigned for his daughter's release and was at the court hearing in Panaji, Goa.

Speaking from the family home in Berkeley Road, Boars Hill, Oxford, Alexia's brother Christopher, 26, was celebrating the news with his mother Lucile, brother Anthony, 21, and sister Olivia, 16.

A telephone call was made to alert his other brother Gregory, 23, who is in Paris. Christopher said: "My father telephoned my mother to say that Alexia and Gary Carter are being freed. I am so delighted I am weak at the knees. The past year has been a living nightmare."

He said he visited his sister in jail in May and she had been confident her appeal would be upheld.

"Alexia has remained very brave and was always sure she would be vindicated," he said.

Christopher, who attended the European School at Culham, where his mother works, added: "We are now looking forward to Christmas and will certainly be cracking open a few bottles of Champagne. We are all very close. "I want to pay tribute to the work my father has done to get her out. He has been to India several times and has been absolutely tireless in his efforts."

A Foreign Office spokesman said: "We understand that the court in Goa has agreed to release Alexia Stewart and her co-defendant, but it may take a few days before the release takes place."

Story date: Tuesday 26 October

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