Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe ‘looking forward to doing school run’ with daughter after ‘surreal’ return to UK

Former detainee describes sustaining herself in prison with ‘faded memories’ of daughter playing, at emotional first press conference

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has said she is looking forward to finally doing the school run with her young daughter, after spending six years held hostage by the Iranian regime.

Speaking for the first time since arriving back in the United Kingdom on Thursday, the British-Iranian dual national thanked her seven-year-old daughter Gabriella – who sat in the front row – “for being very, very patient with mummy to be coming home”.

Arriving at Whitehall’s Portcullis House wearing the national colours of Ukraine, Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe was widely praised by the journalists in attendance for her composure, grace and good humour in answering – and at times politely declining – their questions on her ordeal and long-delayed return home, with several reporters describing intense emotion at seeing her safely back in the UK.

Recalling the “precious” moment she was reunited with her daughter and husband Richard Ratcliffe, who also fielded questions by her side on Monday, Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe said: “I’ve been waiting for that moment for such a long time. And I was overwhelmed, specifically to get to know Gabriella and Richard after such a long time. It was a very, very emotional moment.”

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe hugs her husband and daughter upon her arrival at RAF Brize Norton (Free Nazanin campaign/AFP via Getty Images)

Asked about an image of an embrace between the three taken upon her arrival at RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire on Thursday, she added: “It is surreal to come back and to be holding my husband and my baby, who is not a baby anymore.”

“Coming back to a daughter who is nearly eight – I left her when she was not even two,” she said. “There was a whole lot of catching up to do with Richard and Gabriella and getting to know them better.”

Revealing that she was still living out of a suitcase having not yet returned to their family home in Hampstead, Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe said that she had not realised it was Mother’s Day in six days’ time – but that she and her family had “enjoyed the moment” celebrating Nowruz, the Persian New Year.

Prompting laughter, she joked that Gabriella had “rightly so” been “upgrading mummy” and “downgrading, sadly, daddy a little bit” since her return home – which came after the UK government agreed to settle a longstanding debt of £393m to Iran.

Gabriella was just two when her mother was detained (PA Media)

While Gabriella – who was also in Iran when Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe was arrested by Revolutionary Guards in 2016, on charges of plotting to overthrow the government – had been in Iran with her grandparents until October 2019, Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe said she had not seen her daughter in the two-and-a-half years since.

“It was lovely to get to hold her, to braid her hair and to brush her hair, that was a moment that I really, really missed,” she said.

“The school run is something that I will look forward to because I want to get to know her friends and the community better, but I also think we will have a lot of adjustment, you know, getting to know each other, getting to get into each other’s rhythms, so we will just take it very slowly.”

Having briefly lived with her parents under house arrest in Iran during her detention, Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe said that she had worried her mother “would be very, very upset” at her finally being able to return to the UK.

But instead, her parents were “relieved” and “so happy that this whole thing is over”, she said.

She drew appreciative laughter from the crowd when describing a phone conversation with her daughter while still in Iran, in which Gabriella asked her: “Mummy, you do realise that you are very famous, and then it’s me and then it’s daddy.”

After being told by her mother that fame was best to be avoided “because you want to have a normal life”, she described Gabriella as saying: “You’re not going to be famous forever – maximum a week.”

“So we’re bracing ourselves for a week of fame, and then we’re just going to have a normal family,” Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe joked.

The 44-year-old said that she, her husband and her daughter “are planning to stay in London for the time being” and, in response to a reporter’s question, said that she would be “very, very cautious” about any return to Iran.

Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe said it was “very early to think what is going to happen next” now that she is home.

Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe and her husband during a press conference hosted by their local MP Tulip Siddiq today (PA Wire)

Along with her local MP Tulip Siqqid, she shared the platform on Monday with the daughter of wildlife conservationist Morad Tahbaz, 66, who was taken back into custody in Iran last week. His daughter Roxanne urged the UK government to do “whatever they have to do” to make her family “whole again”.

While she often declined to be drawn on her own time in detention – which she described as a “black hole” – Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe described losing trust in the UK government to bring her home after a string of foreign secretaries failed to free her.

She said of her time in prison: “It will always haunt me. There is no other way around it. It will be with me.”

Asked what memories had kept her going during that period, she said that while her “memory faded as the time went by”, the “most visible memory” was of Gabriella playing and of her husband Richard getting her a cup of fennel tea, as she was breastfeeding at the time.

The couple discussed their return to normal life (PA Wire)

“But then it faded gradually so I had very vague memory of that,” she said.

She thanked her “amazing, wonderful” husband for “tirelessly” campaigning for her, with Richard himself saying: “I am super proud of her strength and her survival and her grace.”

He said the journey back to normality would involve “baby steps”, adding: “I’m so pleased she’s back home, that she came home to us.”

Mr Ratcliffe added: “I think we’ll do this and then we will disappear off and heal a bit.”