Woes of attaining British visa

We are husband and wife aged over 75 years. We applied at Gerry’s Islamabad for UK Standard Visit Visa on June 14 (Ref Nos. GWF065108344 and GWF065107476) with all the required documents, including the evidence of United States and Dubai visas. We planned to break journey midway in England as we could not travel to the US in a single stretch. To date we have no information on our visa status though we understand that visa applications of those aged over 65 years are decided within three weeks. Our passports are with Gerry’s and we are told that if we want our passports back for travel, we have to pay over Rs10,000 for each passport. This is certainly not fair on the part of Gerry’s or the British High Commission. It will be nice if they could either decide the fate of our visa applications or withdraw the charges for withdrawing our applications.
Shahid Saeed
Islamabad