An elderly British couple who were detained in a maximum security Taliban prison have arrived in the UK.

Barbie Reynolds, 76, and her husband Peter, 80, landed at Heathrow Airport on Saturday.

The couple were detained by the Taliban’s interior ministry on 1 February as they travelled to their home in Bamyan province, central Afghanistan.

They had been held without charge before being released from detention on Friday and flown to Qatar, where they were reunited with their daughter.

Richard Lindsay, the UK’s special envoy to Afghanistan, previously told Sky News it was “unclear” on what grounds the couple had been detained.

The UK government advises British nationals not to travel to Afghanistan.

Abdul Qahar Balkhi, a spokesperson at the Taliban government’s foreign ministry, said in a statement posted on X that the couple “violated Afghan law” and were released from prison after a court hearing.

He did not say what law the couple were alleged to have broken.

Sky correspondent Cordelia Lynch was at Kabul Airport as the freed couple arrived and departed.

Mr Reynolds told her: “We are just very thankful.”

His wife added: “We’ve been treated very well. We’re looking forward to seeing our children.

“We are looking forward to returning to Afghanistan if we can. We are Afghan citizens.”

The couple have lived in Afghanistan for 18 years and run an organisation called Rebuild, which provides education and training programmes.

They have been together since the 1960s and married in the Afghan capital in 1970.

More than 1,000 people crossed the Channel to the UK in small boats on Friday – the day after the first migrant was deported under the “one in, one out” deal.

The latest Home Office figures show 1,072 people made the journey in 13 boats – averaging more than 82 people per boat.

On the same day, an Iranian man became the third migrant to be deported under the UK’s deal with France.

The number of people who have made the crossing so far in 2025 now stands at 32,103 – a record for this point in a year.

Ministers hope the deal will act as a deterrent, showing migrants they face being sent back to France.

But the scale of Friday’s crossings suggested the policy was so far having little effect on those prepared to make the risky crossing across the Channel.

Read more:
What is the UK-France migrant returns deal?
Where are the UK’s asylum seekers from?

The deal with France means the UK can send migrants who enter the UK on small boats back to France.

For each one returned, the UK will allow an asylum seeker to enter through a safe and legal route – as long as they have not previously tried to enter illegally.

The first flights carrying asylum seekers from France to the UK under the reciprocal aspect of the deal are expected to take place next week.

Although they would not comment on numbers, a Home Office source told the PA news agency they were expected to be “at or close to parity”, given the “one in, one out” nature of the deal.

The agreement came into force on 5 August, having been signed by both countries and approved by the European Commission.

Former British athlete Lynsey Sharp has told Sky News she would have won a bronze medal at the Rio Olympics in 2016 had today’s gender testing rules been in place then.

Sharp came sixth in the women’s 800m final behind three now-barred athletes with differences in sexual development (DSD).

She told sports presenter Jacquie Beltrao the sport has changed considerably from when she was competing.

“Sometimes I look back and think I could have had an Olympic medal, but I gave it my all that day and that was the rules at the time,” she said.

“Obviously, I wish I was competing nowadays, but that was my time in the sport and that’s how it was.”

The Rio women’s 800m final saw South Africa’s Caster Semenya take gold, with Burundi’s Francine Niyonsaba and Margaret Wambui winning silver and bronze respectively. All three would have been unable to compete today.

Semenya won a total of two Olympic gold medals before World Athletics introduced rules limiting her participation in the female class.

In a major policy overhaul introduced this year, World Athletics now requires athletes competing in the female category at the elite level of the sport to take a gene test.

The tests identify the SRY gene, which is on the Y chromosome and triggers the development of male characteristics.

The tests replace previous rules whereby athletes with DSD were able to compete as long as they artificially reduced their testosterone levels.

Sharp says while she was competing, governing bodies “didn’t really deal with the issue head on”, and she was often portrayed as a “sore loser” over the issue.

Despite running a Scottish record in that race, her personal best, she described the experience as a “really difficult time”.

“Sadly, it did kind of taint my experience in the sport and at the Olympics in Rio,” she said.

Sharp added that despite the changes, it remains a “very contentious topic, not just in sport, but in society”.

Read more:
World Athletics to introduce mandatory sex testing
Caster Semenya ruling on sex eligibility case
Olympic gold medallist appeals over genetic sex testing

Boxing has now also adopted a compulsory sex test to establish the presence of a Y chromosome at this month’s world championships.

The controversial Olympic champion Imane Khelif, who won Olympic welterweight gold in Paris 2024 in the female category, did not take it and couldn’t compete.

She has appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport against having to take the test.

Sharp’s comments come as British athletics star and Olympic champion Keely Hodgkinson is tipped to win her first world title in Sunday’s women’s 800m final at the World Athletics Championships in Tokyo.

She is returning from a year out after suffering two torn hamstrings.