The threat of war between India and Pakistan has scuppered the York Evening Press’s efforts to take its latest campaign to the Delhi parliament.

The newspaper has collected nearly 5,000 signatures demanding that deaf and one-legged charity worker Ian Stillman is released from an Indian jail.

But plans for reporter Adam Nichols to take the petition directly to the country’s decision makers before visiting Ian in prison had to be scrapped after Foreign Secretary Jack Straw recommended against travel to the country, and told British nationals already there to leave.

Nichols said: “It didn’t seem sensible to be heading out to India when everybody else was leaving, but I still plan to be going as soon as the Foreign Office decides it is safe.”

Nichols is still hoping to take the paper’s campaign dossier to No 10 in an attempt to persuade Tony Blair to personally intervene on the prisoner’s behalf.

Ian Stillman, whose parents live in York, was jailed for ten years after being convicted of cannabis possession, which he has always denied.

The Evening Press started its campaign after Ian was denied a sign language translator at his trial, effectively excluding him from taking any part. Human rights lawyer Stephen Jakobi called it “the worst miscarriage of justice I have dealt with.”

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