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Judith Tebbutt
Judith Tebbutt photographed in Somalia. She has flown back to Britain after being held hostage for more than six months. Photograph: Reuters
Judith Tebbutt photographed in Somalia. She has flown back to Britain after being held hostage for more than six months. Photograph: Reuters

Freed British hostage arrives back in UK

This article is more than 12 years old
Judith Tebbutt kidnapped by pirates off coast of Kenya and held hostage for more than six months

A British woman snatched by pirates from an east African island has flown back to Britain after being released be her captors.

Judith Tebbutt had been held hostage for more than six months after she was kidnapped off the Kenyan coast, and has said she was "hugely relieved" to be free.

She arrived at Heathrow on Friday evening and was driven away in an unmarked police convoy without speaking to reporters at the airport.

News of Tebbutt's ordeal came after her release from captivity, when a ransom was reportedly raised by relatives.

She was taken from the remote Kiwayu safari village, close to the border with Somalia, last September by a gang who killed her husband David, 58.

She revealed after her release that she did not know that her husband had been killed until two weeks after she was kidnapped.

She said in a video broadcast by the BBC: "He was a good man. That was very unfortunate, really horrible. But you just need to pick up the pieces and move on.

"I didn't know he'd died until about, I think it was two weeks from my capture. I just assumed he was alive, but then my son told me he'd died. That was difficult.

"And it must have been hard for my son as well, very hard, and he's been fantastic, he's been absolutely fantastic, I don't know how he secured my release, but he did, and I'm really happy, I can't wait to see him, really."

Earlier this week Tebbutt was reunited with her son Oliver at the British high commission in Nairobi.

In a statement at the time, she said: "I am of course hugely relieved to at last be free, and overjoyed to be reunited with my son Ollie.

"This, however, is a time when my joy at being safe again is overwhelmed by my immense grief, shared by Ollie and the wider family, following David's passing in September last year. My family and I now need to grieve properly."

It was reported that Tebbutt's family paid a ransom of £800,000 for her release.

Farmhand Ali Babitu Kololo, 25, has been charged in connection with the attack.

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