Matthew Hedges says he is now on a mission to clear his name of spying charges.

He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "The path we're on now is to accept what's happened, and now to try and find ways and means of clearing my name because our life has been detrimentally affected."

When asked why the UAE targeted him, Matthew Hedges told the BBC: "That's something that's still not clear, I really don't know, I don't think it's a personal vendetta against myself, maybe there's something else that I don't know about, but I didn't have any secret information, this was made very clear, it's all open source information."

Matthew Hedges says his interrogators in the UAE offered him the chance to spy for them while he was in prison.

The Durham academic told the BBC: "This is how my panic attacks started, this was on the first week, on the third of fourth day, they propositioned me to steal official documentation from the Foreign Office.

"And so I responded, I had a panic attack, and I said 'listen, even if I wanted to I couldn't, I don't work for the Foreign Office, I don't know how you think this would be possible'.

"And that's how that whole process went downhill quite quickly."

Daniela Tejada is calling on people to challenge the Government to make sure what happened to her husband doesn't happen to anyone else.

Speaking about the Foreign Office, she said: "It's very hard to assess whether they did things as quickly and as effectively as they could. I wouldn't attribute any of what has happened to perhaps individual decisions or mistakes.

"I think it's a wider and institutional issue, things as simple as the data protection act, the fact they were unwilling or unable to share information about Matt’s whereabouts or his condition for six weeks because they didn't have his explicit authorisation.

"They weren't getting access to him so how could they get his explicit authorisation?"

She said she believes institutions are run by rules and it is very hard to get them to act independently and assess them on a case-by-case basis.

She said: "I think that it's a wider issue that should be challenged or should be questioned by the wider public

"We really need to ask our Government whether they are indeed taking the right measures to ensure these sort of situations don't happen to other people

"People have the responsibility to demand their Government change things," she said.

Image source, PA

The Durham academic jailed for life for spying in the UAE has told the BBC he contemplated suicide during his detention

Matthew Hedges told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "I was expecting to be taken to jail, but instead I was taken back to this interrogation room, and then I was subsequently interrogated again the following day.

"So nothing was making sense, I couldn't process it.

"That weekend was the second or third time I had had suicidal thoughts, because I was expecting to go to a jail and we would try and find a way through this, but instead I was back in the same cell.

"I was having quite bad panic attacks, I was choking, I couldn't breathe, and in that night I dreamt that I was hanging myself in the cell, so that wasn't good. It was very hard to deal with throughout the whole interrogation process."

Image source, Daniela Tejada

Matthew Hedges has told BBC Radio 4's Today programme he was in "complete and total shock" after a court in the UAE handed down a life sentence for spying.

He said: "I wasn't able to process it right in the court, it was too much, like an explosion.

"I couldn't say goodbye to Dani or anyone else, I was just rushed out of the court and put in a car and taken back to the same interrogation room where I was held for the previous six months."

Matthew Hedges' wife Daniela Tejada said the whole experience had been "horrendous".

She said from day one she knew it would be a lot more complicated than people were telling her.

She said: "Naturally hearing he would sentenced to life in prison for something he didn't do was heartbreaking."

She added seeing him shaking in court without being able to say goodbye had not been easy.

Image source, BEN STANSALL/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

A British academic who was accused of spying in the United Arab Emirates says he panicked and told the authorities he was a captain in MI6 in an effort to be released.

Matthew Hedges told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "All I know is that I confessed to being an MI6 agent.

"They asked me what rank I was, and I panicked and I said I'm a captain. Just tell them whatever they wanted to hear to just try and make it go forward.

"I was told (I would be released if I confessed) not only by the interrogators but also by the state prosecutor, they told me 'you're very lucky that you have told us the truth from the start, because if you hadn't you would be in jail for the rest of your life'."

Image source, Daniela Tejada

A British academic who was accused of spying and held in solitary confinement in the United Arab Emirates for nearly six months has said he confessed to espionage after a campaign of "psychological pressure".

Matthew Hedges told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "I didn't have a lawyer present, I had denied continuously for over week that I didn't work for the UK government in any single capacity, I was simply a PhD student and I had a job back down in Exeter.

"So they started to increase the psychological pressure. I had panic attacks for a few days previous, and so when this pressure increased I couldn't take it any more, and I wasn't sure if they just wanted me to admit it, just sign a piece of paper and they'll let me go, and they even said if you admit things, you tell us what we want to hear, we'll make it easier for you.

"So at that point I had no other option, they didn't believe what I was trying to tell them, there was nothing else I could do."

Image source, Daniela Tejada

The Durham academic jailed for life for spying in the UAE and then pardoned has told the BBC his detention felt like "psychological torture".

Matthew Hedges told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "One of the days when I tried to tell the truth to the interrogators, their reaction was to make me stand for the day wearing ankle cuffs.

"It was mentally exhausting, physically the adrenaline takes over, and so afterwards I was pretty sore, but it was how it made you feel mentally.

"Psychologically it felt like torture, with the cocktail of medication I was being given, at times I would also ask for the medication (for depression and anxiety) to be increased."

Image source, Daniela Tejada

The Durham academic jailed for life for spying in the UAE has told the BBC he was blindfolded and handcuffed while in captivity.

Matthew Hedges was pardoned by the crown prince after apparently signing a confession saying he was engaged in espionage.

Speaking to Radio 4's Today programme, he said: "It was lonely and isolating, completely, there was no natural light, I wasn't allowed to try and distract myself, I couldn't listen to a radio until I had started the court case and my mental health and deteriorated quite substantially.

"I was shackled, whenever I had to go to the bathroom or use the shower I would be escorted by four guards, and I would wear ankle cuffs, whenever I was transported between different premises I was blindfolded and handcuffed."

Image source, FAMILY HANDOUT/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

A British academic who was accused of spying and held in solitary confinement in the United Arab Emirates for nearly six months has told how his ordeal at the hands of interrogators felt like psychological "torture".

Matthew Hedges was sentenced to life imprisonment by the Gulf state after being accused of working for MI6, before being pardoned by the nation's president days later.

Now back home in the UK with wife Daniela Tejada, the Durham University PhD student has spoken about his experience, claiming "aggressive" interrogators left him "so scared and on edge".

"I was never physically tortured, but it was psychological, and it felt like torture," he said in an interview with The Times., external

Image source, Daniela Tejada

Good morning and welcome to our live coverage.

We've got all the news, sport, travel and weather through the day, plus we'll hear from Durham academic Matthew Hedges, who was jailed for life for spying in the UAE last month.

If you want to get in touch with any news or send us photos you can tweet us, external, contact us via our Facebook , externalpage or email us.

Image source, Daniela Tejada

Former Chelsea and Manchester United chief executive Peter Kenyon is heading a group that is in talks to buy Newcastle United.

Mitesh Patel planned to cash in £2m from his wife's death to move to Australia with his boyfriend.

Five-year-old Lucas dialled 999 when his grandfather collapsed into a diabetic coma.

William Charlton tried to provoke racial hatred "under a cloak of respectability", a court hears.

Ministers have refused permission for a plan to introduce a population of lynx into Kielder Forest.

Image source, Getty Images

The Lynx UK Trust had argued that the species, extinct for decades in the UK, should be reintroduced in the interests of biodiversity, although plans for a similar release in the Lake District were abandoned.

Now Michael Gove, the Defra secretary, has written to the group saying its plans "did not meet the necessary standards set out in the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) guidelines."

But, a statement added: "The government remains committed to providing opportunities for the reintroduction of species where there are clear environmental and socio-economic benefits."

Our live updates here have finished for the day. This feed will be updated overnight with any breaking news and sport stories as well as travel updates.

You can also stay on to date online, on BBC Newcastle, BBC Tees and Look North.

We'll be back with more updates from 08:00 tomorrow and hope you can join us then.

If you want to get in touch with any news or send us photos you can tweet us, external, contact us via our Facebook , externalpage or email us.

Tonight will be dry and cold for a time with the chance of a few fog patches developing. However, cloud is likely to increase. Turning mostly cloudy before morning.

Minimum Temperature: -2 to 1C (28 to 34F).

Tomorrow will be cloudy with outbreaks of rain spreading from the south, some heavy and briefly preceded by sleet or wet snow over some upland areas in the morning. Hill fog possible too.

Maximum Temperature: 4 to 7C (39 to 45F).