Teddy row peer was 'told not to go'

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"I got a telephone call at 9pm on Thursday night and I called the Foreign Office immediately and the response unit, actually, they advised me not to go," Lord Ahmed told the BBC.

He was told Foreign Secretary David Miliband would not make a final decision until the following day so he made his own arrangements for a visa and flight to Sudan.

He said the Foreign Office said they did not recommend people travel to Khartoum, and stressed he went there as an "individual Parliamentarian" and not as a Government representative.

Mrs Gibbons, 54, was imprisoned after she allowed her seven-year-old pupils to name a teddy bear Mohammed.

Mrs Gibbons was accused of insulting Islam by allowing the bear to be named after the prophet. It is considered blasphemous to create an idol in his image.

She was pardoned by President Omar al-Bashir after Lord Ahmed and Conservative Baroness Warsi travelled to Sudan.

Mrs Gibbons has now returned to her home city of Liverpool.

Lord Ahmed said: "I think that it was a great success. Gillian was healthy, she was fit, she was in good form. We all together, all of us, worked together for her release."