he has two daughters police said ayres was not carrying any mobile phone and had only a pair of binoculars and a notepad he and ayres had been booked under the indian telegraph act and were on tuesday granted bail by a delhi court after recording the details of the aircraft like altitude call sign etc they used to decode the information on their laptop with the help of a software called base station which can be easily downloaded from the internet ayress wife dorothy told officials that he is not a spy and was only an avid plane spotter new delhi the two british plane spotters arrested in delhi last week were asked by one of their friends from bristol to hire a particular room at radisson hotel because it gave them a better view for aircraft spotting stating that keeping the accused in custody would amount to infringement of their personal liberty metropolitan magistrate saurabh pratap singh laler granted them bail both are employed with first great western railways limited in bristol i do not want to make any comment till the court case is over he said he notes down the number of the planes only as a hobby she is believed to have told the officials of the high commission in delhi the court asked the accused not to leave india without prior permission from it their passports have been returned to them it also asked the accused duo to furnish a personal bond of rs 10000 each as a precondition for release fixing the matter for further hearing on march 3 speaking to toi over phone hampston refused to comment on the case the two claimed to have travelled to hong kong china and america besides other places spotting planes without a hitch hampston belongs to keynsham in bristol and works as a railway conductor while ayres works at st philips marsh they were charged with carrying an sbs 1er popularly known as s box which monitors and records the movement of aircraft this is the first time the two had come to india inputs from smriti singh police said he had called up his home and broke down while narrating his ordeal the court however observed that the frro is the sole authority with regard to foreigners and the court cannot give directions on this issue detention of foreignersthe frro delhi is directed to issue a fresh direction as regards to fresh detention of the accused the court added the friend kevin stokes along with another person alastair james huggins had stayed in the same room no 464 for three days in january from where the two steven martin ayres 55 and stephen hampston 46 were held