Faye was like a 'big sister'
Shropshire sailor Faye Turney was like a "big sister" to her younger colleagues during their Iranian hostage ordeal, one of them revealed yesterday. Shropshire sailor Faye Turney was like a "big sister" to her younger colleagues during their Iranian hostage ordeal, one of them revealed yesterday. Mrs Turney, whose parents live in Shrewsbury, became the face of the hostage crisis after the Iranians paraded her on television and questioned the mother-of-one's role in the Royal Navy. Arthur Batchelor, the youngest sailor to be held captive, said Mrs Turney had been like a "big sister". He said: "The day it happened Faye literally put her arms around me and said she would stay with me and look after me." Read the full story in today's Shropshire Star
Mrs Turney, whose parents live in Shrewsbury, became the face of the hostage crisis after the Iranians paraded her on television and questioned the mother-of-one's role in the Royal Navy.
Arthur Batchelor, the youngest sailor to be held captive, said Mrs Turney had been like a "big sister".
"The day it happened Faye literally put her arms around me and said she would stay with me and look after me," he said.
In a statement read out by two of the captured sailors, Captain Chris Air and Lieutenant Felix Carman, yesterday, they said: "Throughout our ordeal we have tried to remain very much a team. No one individual should be singled out, but we are now very aware of the special treatment singled out to Faye Turney.
"Faye is a young mother and wife. She volunteered to join the Royal Navy and is very proud to continue to serve. She is a highly professional operator and we are incredibly proud to have her as part of our team.
"The fact she is a women has been used as a propaganda tool by Iran. This is deeply regrettable."
The pair revealed Mrs Turney had been separated from her colleagues after they were captured on March 23.
Captain Air said: "Being an Islamic country Faye was subjected to different rules. Like all of us she has been exploited. Coming home to her family has been a great relief."
"She was separated from us as soon as we arrived in Teheran in the detention centre, and isolated in a cell well away from any of us.
"She was told shortly afterwards that we'd all been returned home, and was under the impression for about four days that she was the only one there.
"So clearly, she was subjected to quite a lot of stress that we, fortunately, didn't know about, and we weren't subjected to ourselves. She coped admirably and retained a lot of dignity.
Lieutenant Carman said: "We had a fair idea of who was around in different cells, but I didn't hear Faye for the first 10 days. I believe she was told in the first day or so she was on her own and we had gone home."
The 15 were taken captive while on patrol in the Gulf. Iran has claimed they were in Iranian waters, while the sailors and marines themselves have insisted they never left Iraqi territory.
On Thursday, Mrs Turney and her colleagues were flown into Heathrow from Tehran before being taken by helicopter to the barracks in Devon to be reunited with their families.
The mother of three-year-old Molly married her husband Adam in 2002 at Oxon Church, in Shrewsbury.
