“WE stand with you” was British firefighters’ defiant message to a Spanish firefighter facing prison time for saving drowning refugees.

Members of the Fire Brigades Union (FBU) meeting at the union’s conference gave four standing ovations today to Miguel Roldan, a firefighter based in Seville in southern Spain.

Mr Roldan, who has been in Seville’s underwater fire service unit since 2013, used 20 days of his summer holiday in 2017 aboard fishing vessel Iuventa, that had been converted into a rescue ship by Berlin-based refugee rescue organisation Jugend Rettet.