A WEST Oxfordshire film-maker arrested during a protest against oil drilling in the Arctic has today returned to the UK.

Phil Ball, 42, from Milton-under-Wychwood, was one of 30 people detained on September after Russian troops boarded the Greenpeace ship Arctic Sunrise.

The soldiers came on board after four Greenpeace members tried to board a drilling platform owned by Russian state energy company Gazprom in the Barents Sea.

Now the father-of-three, who had been facing charges of hooliganism, has had the charges against him dropped and departed St Petersburg at around 7.30am this morning.

He was back in the UK this afternoon.

The Duma, the Russian Parliament, earlier this month passed an amnesty for defendants charged with hooliganism.

Mr Ball had been held in Russian jails since the protest in September but was released on bail shortly before the amnesty was announced.