You're listening to a podcast from the BBC World Service. This is Hard Talk with me, Stephen Sacker.

Thanks for downloading this edition of the program. I do hope you enjoy it.

Welcome to Hard Talk on the BBC World Service with me, Stephen Sacker.

My guest today are parents who've lived through years of anguish and heartache as a result of decisions

taken by their eldest son. Sally Lane and John Letts raised their family in a comfortable

liberal household in Oxford. Then their eldest, Jack, took a path which has led the family

to a dark place. Jack, a bright teenager with some mental

health issues, converted to Islam. He became increasingly politically radicalised. In 2014, his parents

agreed to let him go travelling in the Middle East. By the end of that year, he'd moved to the

so-called Islamic State Caliphate in Syria. He married an Iraqi woman and had a child.

But by later 2015, his sporadic messages home suggested he was disillusioned with the militant life.

His parents sent him money and tried to send more, hoping he would leave. But he ended up captured

and imprisoned by Kurdish forces in northern Syria,

the very forces who are today trying to fight off an invasion by the Turkish military.

Jack has had his British citizenship revoked.

His parents have been convicted under Britain's anti-terror laws for sending him money,

and the future is deeply uncertain. What will, what should happen to Jack

Letts? Well, Sally Lane and John Letts join me now. Welcome to Hard Talk. You are in a very

difficult situation right now because your son Jack is, as far as we know, imprisoned, held by Kurdish forces in northern Syria,

those forces currently under attack from the Turkish army.

What is the latest information you have about what is happening to your son?

Well, we're having to rely on the journalist reports of what's happening in the region.

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