THE Foreign Office has detailed a multi-national plan to help free a 24-year-old pilot being held in an African jail accused of killing 18 people.

Whitehall officials yesterday told David Simpson’s family they could have acted sooner after he was locked up in the Central African Republic nearly two months ago, but said it could not “bully” another country over its judicial proceedings.

Mr Simpson, 24, of Gillamoor, on the North York Moors, had been working for hunting firm Cawa Safari, which runs trips to shoot lions and buffalo on a game reserve, when he found 18 mutilated corpses of friends and colleagues on March 23.

Many had machete wounds on the back of their heads, while some had been beaten to death with sticks and had been scalded with water.

It is suspected they were killed by the Lord’s Resistance Army, a terrorist group thought to be responsible for hundreds of atrocities.

Soon after, investigators arrested the former pupil of Lady Lumley’s School, in Pickering, in the country’s capital, Bangui, along with his Swedish boss. Both have been charged on suspicion of the murders, along with 13 of their staff.

At a meeting in Whitehall yesterday, Mr Simpson’s brother, Paul, 22, and his father, Pete, were told the Foreign Office would wait until a week after a third investigation – to decide whether to prosecute Mr Simpson – was completed by Central African Republic investigators, before increasing pressure.

Paul Simpson said the British consul in Cameroon was continuing to strive to secure his brother’s release, and that David Cameron had met the president of Gabon, who has agreed to send an envoy to the war-torn country to represent Britain.

He said: “The officials explained there are laws of diplomacy and if they went in hard at the start, they would have been playing all their cards at once.

“We are very pleased David Cameron is aware and has taken these steps. It is good to know we have the backing of the person at the top.

“The Foreign Office addressed every question that we had and it has put our minds at ease that everything possible is being done.”

Thirsk and Malton MP Anne McIntosh said: “The Foreign Office is using every diplomatic means to get David out of a country in which the Foreign Office does not have a diplomatic presence – and that speaks volumes for how dangerous a place it is.”