THE anxious family of Greenpeace activist Phil Ball, who has been held in Russia for the past two months, will today learn whether he has been granted bail.

Father-of-three Mr Ball, from Chipping Norton, was one of 28 activists and two journalists seized from their ship, the Arctic Sunrise, by armed coastguards, after some of them tried to scale a Russian-owned offshore oil drilling platform in the Barents Sea.

Charged with piracy and placed in a pre-trial detention centre in Murmansk, the charges against them were later reduced to hooliganism, which carries a potential seven-year jail sentence.

During the last week, 20 of the so-called ‘Arctic 30’ have been granted bail from their current detention centre in Saint Petersburg, with a £38,000 surety for each prisoner paid by Greenpeace.

But 42-year-old Mr Ball’s family have been facing a tense waiting to see whether he will also be released.

His brother Steve Ball, 44, and also from Chipping Norton, said: “We have been told Phil’s bail hearing is at 1pm on Friday and we all have our fingers firmly crossed.”