Legal proceedings against a Scots ex-soldier kept in India for almost two years could finally see him allowed home next month, a campaigning relative has said.

Billy Irving, from Connel, Argyll and Bute, was among six British anti-piracy security guards on a US-owned ship when they were arrested in October 2013 on illegal weapons charges.

After being told the case against them was quashed, Indian prosecutors applied for a retrial, which is now under way.

The evidence of 69 witnesses will be examined in the coming weeks, with relatives hopeful that at the end of the process, the courts will see how weak the case is against the British guards.

The Britons were working for US maritime company AdvanFort providing anti-piracy protection when their ship - MV Seaman Guard Ohio, which had a crew of 35 - was detained.

Captured Nick Dunn's sister Lisa said lawyers had reported back that the first day of the hearing had gone well for the defendants.

She said the witness examination process could take several weeks.

"That will be the point where the momentum will increase and I feel things will start to progress," she said.

After the families have had many disappointments in the two years since their loved ones were arrested, kept in jail then released but not allowed to leave India, she dared not get too hopeful.

"There have been so many days in court over the 23 months with nothing happening, I am almost numb to a day in court," she said.

"[But] I feel like it is the beginning of the end, I certainly hope and feel once these witnesses have been examined, it should be a relatively quick hearing.

"I would like to see him on a plane by the middle of next month."

Her brother is staying in Chennai, a 12-hour bus ride from the hearing at the port in Tuticorin where the men were originally held.

The Foreign Office has said Britain cannot interfere in the Indian legal process. The Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary have repeatedly raised the men's case with Indian authorities.

Ian Lavery, Labour MP for Wansbeck and who represents Mr Dunn, said: "It's obvious that they are not guilty of any offence.

"You have to feel sorry for them. It is nearly two years that they have been incarcerated in one shape or another."

Also detained are Ray Tindall from Chester, Paul Towers, from Yorkshire, John Armstrong, from Wigton, Cumbria, and Nicholas Simpson, from Catterick.