For years, 15 gentoo penguins have been confined to the basement of Sea Life London Aquarium - and become the centre of a Express crusade to "free the 15". A day in February 2024 started like any other until an email from animal protection charity Freedom for Animals landed in my inbox highlighting the plight of the penguins. Despite working opposite the aquarium in the Houses of Parliament, I had been completely unaware of the animals' existence in their "dungeon" enclosure. I wrote up the story soon after, calling the penguins "captive" and added a petition link to the end of the article.

I will leave you to imagine my surprise when an email landed in my inbox from the aquarium demanding I remove both the word "captive" and the petition from the piece.

Dear reader, for the avoidance of any doubt, I am happy to confirm that those poor penguins are captive by every definition of the word.

When the paper stood its ground and refused to budge, we were threatened with legal action unless we changed the piece.

After an exchange of lawyer letters, I did what any self-respecting journalist would do and contacted the aquarium asking for a "right of reply" on their legal threats for a follow-up article we were planning.

But before publishing anything further, I made the short trek across Westminster bridge to the grade two-listed former council building housing the aquarium and made a beeline for the penguin exhibit.

What I saw shocked me. One penguin stood staring blankly at an iceberg painted on the wall - a frozen illusion of a world it would never know.

Fake ice dotted the enclosure with a pool in the middle nowhere near the depth of the vast ocean.

At a depth of around 7ft, it is a far cry from their natural habitat in the Antarctic Peninsula, Falkland Islands and South Georgia which allows them to dive to extraordinary depths of 680ft at 22mph.

A yellow band on one penguin's fin indicated she was Polly, the oldest in the colony.

Born in May 1995, she and nine others were traded from the fresh air and overcast skies of Edinburgh Zoo for the basement in the UK capital in 2011.

The current population trend for gentoos in the wild is stable with an estimate of 774,000 mature individuals, meaning they are not endangered.

With the legal threat in my inbox, and the unwavering support of the Express editors, I returned to the office with a plan to publish the article called "Sea Life London Aquarium threatens legal action for saying penguins are 'captive'."

And that is when the campaign to "free the 15" was born.

It was former Undertones star and clean water campaigner Feargal Sharkey, a supporter of the cause from the start, who came up with the slogan.

I was waltzing around demanding we "free the gentoo 15" but Mr Sharkey, a man who has used the power of effective communication to put Britain's sewage crisis on the map, dropped the "gentoo" and the admittedly catchier name stuck.

We also amassed the support of broadcaster Chris Packham, green entrepreneur Dale Vince and more than a dozen animal welfare charities. The Born Free Foundation also came on board as an official campaign partner, alongside Freedom for Animals.

In August 2025, the campaigners and Mr Packham signed a letter to the aquarium which got attention across the UK's national newspapers.

I found out later that aquarium bosses had scrambled to organise an emergency meeting in response to the letter.

This nugget of information came to light when I submitted something called a Subject Access Request (SAR), which entitles me to all the information held by the aquarium on me.

For months, it irked me that the tourist attraction had appeared to evade scrutiny of data on the animals' welfare since Lambeth Council - which licences them - could only access the relevant statistics by logging into the aquarium's portal.

This means that when journalists or concerned members of the public attempt to obtain the information under Freedom of Information Act laws, our requests are fruitless because the local authority does not technically hold it.

But I knew the one topic they did have information on and were legally obligated to hand over - me.

When the results of the SAR arrived in my inbox via .zip file, I was dumbfounded.

I saw they had panicked over the coverage of the open letter in August of 2025 signed by celebrities and animal welfare groups.

But what really struck me were messages which appeared to suggest that the Express campaign was not something to worry about because it was mostly isolated to our paper, and not getting pick up elsewhere.

The audacity, I thought. If they believed this story was small, we would make it impossible to ignore.

We needed to get the penguins into news publications across the country.

That's when Mr Packham, Mr Sharkey, zoologist Megan McCubbin and Mr Vince sprung into action to lead a 300-person protest outside the aquarium in October 2025.

Soon after, Labour MP David Taylor and Liberal Democrat MP Danny Chambers spearheaded a letter signed by 75 MPs to Environment Secretary Emma Reynolds about the penguins.

The coverage from both actions spanned every UK national paper and broadcaster, CNN and even the New Zealand Herald carried the story.

After nearly two years, the fight to free the 15 had gone global.

The aquarium's owners Merlin Entertainment - finally - had no choice but to issue a statement that was different to the one they had been copying and pasting to us for the previous year and a half.

They claimed they were willing to listen.

Freedom for Animals, Born Free and PETA had a meeting in late December 2025, alongside other animal experts.

Following talks, the aquarium in January this year said breeding would "remain paused" while discussions continued.

After more pressure from the Express to act soon, it went further this month by admitting "no change was not an option" and would provide a concrete plan for the penguins' future by the end of May.

In a statement earlier this month, a spokesman for Merlin Entertainment said: "We're in intensive, science-backed discussions with independent experts to determine best next steps.

"We all agree that no change is not an option and are together looking at the risks and opportunities associated with relocating the penguins, as an alternative to making further improvements to the habitat at Sea Life London.

"We are on track to share the plan, drawing on input from independent experts - including campaign groups and other key stakeholders - by the end of May.

"In parallel we're enhancing the penguins' habitat and providing new opportunities that encourage natural behaviours, implementing recommendations agreed via the group, and remaining firmly focused on their daily care."

Now, I hasten to write that simply moving the penguins outside is more nuanced than it might initially seem.

Two of the 15 gentoos are geriatric and particularly susceptible to disease. Whatever happens next will be done carefully, under expert guidance, with the best interest of the animals at the heart of the rescue mission.

The fight to free them is by no means over.

This crusade - which has united the media, MPs and nearly 50,000 members of the public - will not end until those penguins see the light of day.