MALMESBURY mother Iris Baker said she feared for her 32-year-old son, held in a squalid Japanese jail, as a massive earthquake ripped through Japan on Monday.

Last week the Gazette reported how father-of-one Nick Baker from Stroud, Gloucestershire, has spent most of his year in solitary confinement at the notorious Chiba Prison awaiting sentencing after being charged with attempting to smuggle 40,000 ecstasy tablets out of the country.

The earthquake hit the north of the country and measured seven on the Richter scale but tremors were felt in Tokyo, near where Mr Baker is held.

Mrs Baker, who has cashed in her pension to fight for her son's release, said she was concerned for his safety.

She said:"Yes, I was worried about him. The earthquake hit when Baroness Ludford, MEP for London, and Sabine Zanker, a lawyer for the charity Fair Trials Abroad, arrived in Japan to help my son.

"They said they were on the 15th floor of a hotel and it was swinging for two minutes."

Mrs Baker added that her son was not injured in the earthquake but still has to live in solitary confinement, where he has been told off for praying.

At the moment, evidence which Mrs Baker hopes will prove her son's innocence is being translated.