Mr Simpson said he believed his grandchildren would have a better life being brought up by their relatives in the UK.





He added: ‘Their Chinese grandparents are fairly uneducated. The grandfather cannot read or write, and the grandmother can only read a little. I don’t think they are being mistreated, but how do they read to the children?





‘They will be better off over here, having their own bedrooms and all the comforts of home. They will have a whole network of relatives here and we have places waiting for them at school. All our other grandchildren do things like ballet and Scouts, but there is nothing like that over there. Everything from schooling to play areas and other facilities are better here.





‘We have even lined up a Chinese tutor for them so they can keep their Chinese up. We want their family in China to stay in touch. If they stay in China, they will become more and more Chinese, and we will have lost them.’





Mr Simpson’s existence is as far removed from his grandchildren’s life in the town of Nanzhang as is possible to imagine.





Most people, including Jack and Alice, live in crumbling low-rise apartment blocks and the ramshackle town centre is packed with vegetable and fruit sellers who bring their produce in from the countryside on bicycles and motorised rickshaws.

Foreigners are hardly ever seen and locals stop in their tracks and stare at the sight of any Westerner.

Alice, who went to an exclusive international school in Shanghai, now attends a government school on the dusty outskirts of the town where she is the only foreign pupil.





For now, the custody case remains deadlocked. Mr Simpson said his lawyers had officially rejected the demand for money, and they are set to launch a civil battle for custody, but this can’t begin until after Weiwei is sentenced.





A friend has set up a crowdfunding website to help cover legal costs.





Mr Simpson said: ‘Bringing up the children here will be a hard slog, and people say, “Do you really need to be looking after children at your age?” But there is no alternative.





‘Losing Michael has put a hole in our souls and if we lost his children as well, then that hole would be ten times bigger and we would have lost his whole family.’



