The former political prisoner said she wanted to make sure people knew she had been forced to sign, to prevent the Iranian regime from exploiting her “dehumanising” confession.

“Why would I sign something? I have been trying very, very hard for the past six years to say I have not done it,” she said.

“All the false confessions that we have been exposed to, they have no value.

“They are just propaganda for the Iranian regime to show how scary they are and they can do whatever they want to do.”

Human rights organisation Redress, acting on Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s behalf, has written to Foreign Secretary Liz Truss criticising “the UK government’s apparent complicity in Iran’s forcing of Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe to sign a false confession as a condition of her release, which has had a lasting impact”.

Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s lawyers said she was “deeply distressed” and “shocked to be required by UK government representatives as well as the Iranian authorities, to sign a false confession as a condition of her release”.

According to the letter, on 16 March Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe was taken to an airport by Iranian officials. Her lawyers claim the UK’s lead negotiator told her a confession would have no value and she needed to sign the document if she wanted to get on the plane.

“We regard this forced confession as part and parcel of the pattern of torture Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe has suffered since she was first detained in 2016,” Redress said.

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