Tooting MP Sadiq Khan has joined the campaign to free a Balham entrepreneur from jail in Dubai.

Safi Qurashi, 41, who grew up in Ritherdon Road, was jailed after being convicted of bouncing cheques - a criminal offence in the United Arab Emirates.

This week Mr Khan wrote to William Hague, the foreign secretary, and the country’s British Ambassador, pleading for them to intervene.

Mr Khan said: “The lawyers for Mr Qurashi’s family have some serious concerns.

“He’s been given a prison sentence for what appears to have been a misunderstanding.”

Mr Qurashi has been jailed for seven years after being convicted of signing cheques worth more than £50m without sufficient funds and cancelling another cheque while he tried to complete three property deals.

According to his prosecution team, he handed over cheques as a “security deposit” - which is common in Dubai - but they were never intended to be cashed.

The news comes just two years after he bought a £43m island in the shape of Great Britain which is part of The World, a man-made cluster of 300 sandbanks in the Gulf.