While sailor Faye could net up to £100,000, Scots captive tells his story over a pint

While Scottish Marine Danny Masterton was happy to tell his story over a pint in his local pub, Leading Seaman Faye Turney, the only woman of the group, reportedly struck deals worth more than 100,000 with ITV1's Tonight with Trevor McDonald programme and a newspaper.

The MoD says the move will allow them to exercise a degree of control over how details of the crew's 13-day ordeal emerge. But it was yesterday facing a growing backlash, with families of soldiers killed in the Gulf, senior military figures and politicians all attacking the decision.

Mike Aston, whose 30-year-old son, Corporal Russell Aston, was one of six military policemen killed by a mob in Majar al-Kabir, Iraq, in June 2003, said he was "absolutely amazed" by the decision.

He said: "Let's put it this way, regarding my son's death - and it was a very high-profile case - I can put my hand on my heart and say that I've never sought or made a penny out of it ... it would besmirch my son's memory."

Rose Gentle, whose son, 19-year-old Fusilier Gordon Gentle, was killed in Basra in June 2004, said: "This is wrong and I don't think it should be allowed by the MoD. None of the parents who have lost loved ones in Iraq have sold their stories."

And Colonel Bob Stewart, who was the first British UN Commander in Bosnia, said

: "It makes me a bit sick because people who have lost loved ones might say, 'We have just had huge losses which can't be replaced by money and we've never profited out of it, and these people lived and many died'."

In a statement, the MoD said: "It was clear the stories they had to tell were likely to have emerged via family and friends ... It was therefore decided to grant permission to speak to the media to those personnel that sought it, to ensure that the Navy and the MoD had sight of what they were going to say."

Max Clifford, the publicist, said he had been approached by the fathers of two of the 15 freed personnel and had advised them to give the money earned to families of those who had lost their lives in Iraq in order to defuse any "backlash".

Estimating that offers for the stories could total at least 250,000, Mr Clifford

described the decision to allow the stories to be sold as a "propaganda exercise".

Lieutenant Felix Carman, 26, who also was among those held in Iran, said any fee he made would probably go to charity.

"My main aim is to tell the story," he said. "There's some people who might be making money, but that's an individual's decision ... that's not something that myself or many of the others will do."

In an interview with the press, Marine Masterton, 26, from Muirkirk, Ayrshire,

said he had feared he would be killed after being blindfolded and handcuffed against a prison wall.

"It was the most terrifying moment of my life. I thought my time had come and just waited for the bang," he said.

• CAPTURED sailor Faye Turney has told a tabloid newspaper how she feared she was being measured for her coffin before being killed.

The mother, known as Topsy, was kept isolated from her comrades and told they had been sent home.

Leading Seaman Turney told The Sun newspaper: "One morning, I heard the noise of wood sawing and nails being hammered near my cell.

"Then a woman came into my cell to measure me.

"She shouted the measurements to a man outside. I was convinced they were making my coffin."

Leading Seaman Turney's story appears in this morning's edition of the Sun, following the decision by the MOD to allow the sailors to sell their stories to the media. It is unknown how much, if anything, she was paid for it.

She told the newspaper she was forced to write "confessions" to entering Iranian waters.

She said she was stripped to her underwear, with the rest of her belongings taken away.

The newspaper reported that she was kept in a tiny room measuring 6ft by 5ft 8ins and asked how she felt about "dying for her government".

Recalling the moment she was separated from her colleagues, she said: "With a blindfold on, I was led away from the rest of the guys.

"All I could hear from behind me was one of them shout, 'They're going to execute us'. It was the first time I got really scared. I genuinely believed they might do it."

At night she was blindfolded and taken to an interrogation room.

She said the threats became more blatant and she was asked: "Do you not want to see your daughter again?"

She said she was told: "If I confessed to being in Iranian waters...I'd be free within two weeks.

"If I didn'...I'd go to prison for 'several years'.

"I had just an hour to think about it. It was a horrible dilemma."

She said she feared everyone in Britain would "hate" her , but wanted to be home for her daughter's birthday next month.

MoD has blown the lid off Pandora's box

THERE have been many extraordinary twists to the tale of the 15 hostages captured - and then dramatically released - by the Iranians, but none more so than the MoD's mind-numbing decision to allow them to sell their story to the newspapers.

As many journalists will testify, being given the blow-by-blow inside story to even the most blandest of events involving soldiers, sailors or airmen has been about as rare as rocking-horse dung. So why the dramatic U-turn - and why now?

To the more open-minded, the reason given by MoD "minders" that these have been "extraordinary" events demanding a similar response, may be fair enough and we should, therefore, be looking no further.

But for the more itchy-minded, like me, there is a sensation of apprehension and deep alarm. By all accounts, these Royal Navy and Marines personnel have come through a very harrowing time at the hands of their low-level Iranian guards and have behaved with courage, imagination and dignity.

That they were exploited by their captors for political gain is without question, but could they not be in danger of further exploitation here at home, as they set about selling their stories to the highest bidders?

There is a feeling that this seminal departure from previously well-thought-out procedure may have a Downing Street authorisation behind it, aimed at getting back at the Iranians for what has generally been seen as a propaganda victory for them.

Surely, if our former hostages were, as it would appear, seized illegally in UN-authorised Iraqi waters, then the place to be pursuing any next stage is in the International courts and not in our national media; in which case, surely further detailed comment should remain subjudice - rather than being packaged in ways reminiscent of competitors emerging from the Big Brother house?

More worrying still is the precedent created for future hostage situations involving our servicemen and women, whether in the volatile Middle East or elsewhere. Will future interrogators act differently if they know their every action could be hitting world headlines within a matter of days? Maybe?

But could their political masters perhaps also conclude that in future cases early release with the dangers of media-inspired hitbacks may no longer be such an attractive option?

Of course, no-one can really tell, but in the sort of cat-and-mouse games that are bound to unfold again some time in the future, a previously cautious MoD may be setting a very dangerous precedent. Whatever happened to that catchy phrase "Mum's the word"?

Not only have the "minders" opened Pandora's box - they have blown the lid clean right off.

• Sir Clive Fairweather was an SAS commander