THERE were emotional scenes at RAF Brize Norton in the early hours of Thursday morning, as Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe arrived back on British soil after six years of detention in Iran.

Elika Ashoori, whose dad Anoosheh was also released by Iran on Wednesday, posted a live video to her Instagram feed of the moment her father and Nazanin stepped off the plane and were reunited with their families shortly after 1am on March 17.

It includes the moment Nazanin’s seven-year-old daughter Gabriella, who can be heard talking to Elika early in the video, and husband Richard Ratcliffe, from Farnham, rush to greet Nazanin at the RAF base.

Other posts on social media in the early hours of Thursday show Nazanin, 43, and Anoosheh, 67, on their flights, first from the Iranian capital Tehran to Muscat in Oman on an Omani government plane, and then from Oman to RAF Brize Norton.

These are then followed by the joyous scenes as they were greeted by their friends, families and foreign secretary Liz Truss once back in the UK.

South West Surrey MP Jeremy Hunt has also campaigned hard for Nazanin’s release, and that of other British-Iranian dual nationals detained in Iran, since his stint as foreign secretary, and told the Herald he “couldn’t stop smiling” on Wednesday after hearing of her release.

He said: “There was nothing I cared about more as foreign secretary and I know South West Surrey residents agreed from the hundreds of emails and letters I received.

“I hope we also get good news for Morad and Mehran, the other two dual nationals still in Tehran, but it is wonderful to celebrate the safe return of Nazanin and Anoosheh. This is one of those days when I just can’t stop smiling – and they don’t happen very often in politics!”

He also hailed Nazanin’s release, and the efforts of all those who helped bring it about, in the House of Commons and gave several interviews in the national media on Wednesday.

Mr Hunt’s own efforts were also name-checked by the prime minister Boris Johnson in his own tweet.

Speaking to the BBC on Wednesday, Nazanin’s husband Richard added he is looking forward to the “beginning of a new life” with his wife and daughter, who returned from her grandparents in Iran to live with her dad in London in 2019, and was “deeply grateful” that she had been released.

He added Gabriella had picked out which toys to take to show her mother – and he had promised one of the first things he would do was make her a cup of tea.

Richard grew up in grew up in Ewshot near Farnham, attended school at St George’s in Castle Street, Farnham, and played for Farnham Rugby Club. He still has family in the town and surrounding area.

“We can’t take back the time that’s gone,” he told the BBC. “But we live in the future not the past. We’ll take it one day at a time.”

Nazanin, a project manager for the Thomson Reuters foundation, was jailed in Iran 2016 when she was accused of plotting to overthrow the Iranian government. She was arrested before boarding a flight back to the UK at Tehran airport after taking her then two-year-old daughter to see her parents in Iran.

She served four years in Evin prison near Tehran, followed by a year under house arrest.

Then, in April last year, she was sentenced to a further year in prison and a one-year travel ban on charges of propaganda against the government.

Anoosheh Ashoori, a retired civil engineer, was detained in Iran in 2017 on spying charges and sentenced to 10 years in prison.

Both Nazanin and Anoosheh have always denied the claims against them.