Read Saving Gary McKinnon Online
Authors: Janis Sharp
As we took Gary back on the train I looked at this
intelligent
, gentle and hugely talented person sitting opposite me who had so much to offer and I wondered when the powers that be had become so cold and unforgiving and lacking in humanity or perspective. I loved Gary so much and would have liked and admired him even if he wasn’t my child. He is an extraordinary human being.
Karen was going on holiday to New York for her birthday, which was on 10 April. We had to have the evidence from Dr Vermeulen, Professor Turk and Professor Baron-Cohen and all our witness statements served on the Home Office in good time.
• • •
On Karen’s birthday, the European Court of Human Rights ruled against Babar Ahmad and Talha Ahsan and ruled that they could be extradited to America. This was devastating news for them and their families. Babar Ahmad had been imprisoned in
the UK for eight years and Talha Ahsan for six years, so to my mind it seemed that they had already served their sentences, even if the website they were accused of running had been illegal.
Talha Ahsan is by all accounts a gentle man, a poet with Asperger’s syndrome. He was twenty-six years old when he was arrested in July 2006 and accused of jointly running a website with Babar Ahmad, although the website had apparently been shut down by the authorities four years earlier.
In the days before the court’s final decision, Talha’s brother Hamja said he listened to one of Gary’s songs, ‘Something in Silence’, on repeat late into the night. Since the decision on his brother, Hamja has been recognised for his art and for his campaign work and Talha has been recognised for his poetry.
I met Talha’s brother and parents in the Houses of Parliament and they were kind, gentle and warm, as was Babar Ahmad’s family. These were not radical Muslims who refused to shake hands with a woman: Babar’s sister was a doctor. It was
heartbreaking
that both sets of pensioner parents might never see their sons again if they were extradited.
How on earth can it not be against someone’s human rights to be locked up in a maximum security prison, in solitary confinement, in an alien country, when the United Nations and the American human rights organisation ACLU have branded similar cases as torture?
At least one man has been held in solitary confinement in the US for forty years.
How one human being can do this to another is beyond my comprehension.
The entrepreneur Karl Watkin was prepared to personally finance a private prosecution of Babar Ahmad and Talha Ahsan in a bid to have them tried in the UK, but this was rejected by the Director of Public Prosecutions.
Talha Ahsan and Babar Ahmad were subsequently extradited and are being held in solitary confinement at Connecticut’s supermax prison, which is the subject of a recent documentary by Yale Law School entitled
The Worst of the Worst.
I
had written a letter to the Queen on 20 April and by chance I discovered that it was the Queen’s birthday the following day. I was hoping that the Queen might be able to issue a pardon, or have a quiet word in President Obama’s ear asking him to agree to Gary being tried in the UK.
Gary’s nightmare had begun during the Queen’s Golden Jubilee. Ten years later the Queen was now celebrating her Diamond Jubilee, so it seemed an appropriate time to ask for a pardon.
I sent a copy of my letter to the Queen to Gary’s MP, David Burrowes, and he wrote about the original meaning of the Jubilee and how it applied to Gary:
The last time this country celebrated a Diamond Jubilee was in the reign of Queen Victoria. In 1897 it had a deeper meaning, with a celebration of dignity and freedom – the principle that no one had the right to take advantage and enslave anyone.
Gary McKinnon is a slave of the unfair extradition process which has sold away his rights as a British citizen to a foreign land.
This week Gary’s mother Janis Sharp drew upon the Queen’s prerogative power of mercy, which has only really been used to
save someone from execution at the scaffold or for a sentence miscalculation. It is not far off where we have got to with Gary.
I told Parliament earlier this year that the extradition of Gary would be tantamount to his execution and Damian Green, now the minister responsible for extradition, agreed in 2009 when he described him facing ‘an explicit death sentence’.
The Jubilee originates from biblical times and a Jubilee year (normally fifty years) would result in slaves and prisoners being freed.
Gary’s call is a Jubilee call for freedom and justice, not impunity; for a trial here – the country of his citizenship, the country where the offences were committed and the country where a domestic police investigation took place ten years ago.
As we celebrate the Jubilee I hope that we will witness an end to the ‘cruel’ prospect of extradition for Gary McKinnon and see the ‘compassion’ spoken by the Deputy Prime Minister and Prime Minister.
It would be worthy of a toast bigger than in 1897 and would be led by Gary’s mother Janis Sharp, who wrote: ‘This compassion for a vulnerable man from the monarch of our nation would surprise and touch the hearts of everyone and would make all parents, including those of disabled and mentally challenged children, feel that they mattered.’
David Burrowes is a man in a million and the most amazing MP to have on your side.
• • •
I woke up one day with the song ‘The Edge of Glory’ in my head and for whatever reason it made me feel really optimistic. I grabbed some tea and honey on toast and switched on my
computer. There was an email from Nick Clegg’s office, asking us to remove their email address from our website as they could not cope with the volume of emails in support of Gary.
This made me laugh. I was incredibly happy about the level of support Gary was
receiving
and I had no intention of removing their email address from our website as that would defeat the purpose.
I got a letter from the Queen thanking me for my letter and saying she understood my distress and concern as a mother, but that as a constitutional sovereign she acts only on the advice of her ministers and remains strictly non-political at all times. The Queen instructed that my letter be forwarded to Home Secretary Theresa May, and the Palace sent good wishes for Gary and me for the future.
That the Queen had responded was great, but I had been hoping that, as the Queen’s prerogative was used by Tony Blair’s government to bring in the extradition treaty, the Queen could use her prerogative of mercy in her Diamond Jubilee year to pardon Gary.
• • •
It was now July. We were informed that a directions hearing was to take place in the High Court on 5 July and that, in
addition
, two further court dates had been set aside for 24 and 25 July. Directions hearings are usually very short affairs, so I was baffled as to why the extra days might be needed. And with the Home Secretary in her quasi-judicial role about to make a decision on Gary, surely his case no longer had anything to do with the court?
I was suspicious of the prosecution’s motives.
At the last minute I decided to submit a statement to the
court as I wanted to make sure the judges were fully aware of all the facts, including the extent of the new medical evidence that had been submitted.
Gary’s QC was working abroad so his barrister, Ben Cooper, was dealing with the hearing. Ben made sure that the judges were given my statement in court that very morning before the court was in session.
Wilson and I walked into the court, which was filled with journalists keen to find out why these court dates had been arranged. We sat behind Gary’s barrister and the judges came into the room and addressed the court.
Prosecuting QC Hugo Keith claimed that the Home Office had received one medical report with regard to Gary. One of the judges – Sir John Thomas, President of the Queen’s Bench – looked surprised and said, ‘Have you read this?’, referring to my statement.
Mr Keith muttered something about ‘another one of Mrs Sharp’s statements’.
The judge repeated to Mr Keith, ‘Have you read this?’
Sir John Thomas knew from my statement that Gary had undergone multiple medical assessments by some of the
foremost
experts in the field. He said to Mr Keith, in what seemed like a stern voice, ‘I suggest you sit down and read this’, which Mr Keith duly did.
Extract from my statement to the court dated 4 July 2012:
In May 2010 the Home Secretary halted the proposed
extradition
of my son Gary McKinnon in order to review and to consider the medical evidence.
In October 2010 David Cameron announced that a decision on my son Gary would be given in a matter of weeks not months.
In November 2010 the Home Office suddenly decided to
request further medical reports, which we provided and which included new medical evidence from face-to-face reports.
Gary provided the Home Office with multiple assessments, including three separate 2012 face-to-face assessments: one by Home Office-approved consultant forensic psychiatrist the esteemed Dr Jan Vermeulen, another by Professor
Baron-Cohen
, one of the most internationally respected experts in his field, and another by psychiatrist Professor Turk, an
internationally
renowned expert in Asperger’s syndrome who has overseen Gary’s care on a regular basis.
Professor Baron-Cohen and Professor Turk’s 2012 evidence also qualified and reinforced Professor Murphy’s original face-to-face evidence.
As the National Autistic Society twice wrote to the Home Office to say that only a consultant forensic psychiatrist who was an expert in autism should be used to assess Gary, we were understandably unable to agree to the involvement of any doctor without the required expertise in ASD.
Professor Simon Baron-Cohen stated in his August 2008 report on his assessment of Gary,
‘With such a low EQ, it is important to recognise that his [Mr McKinnon’s] emotional age or social intelligence is at the level of a child, even if his intelligence in systemizing is at an advanced level.’
Dr Vermeulen in April 2012 deemed my son, Gary McKinnon, Unfit for Trial and at Extreme Suicide Risk.
Gary rarely ever leaves his home as he is traumatised to the core. A boy who cycled, swam, composed music and sang, now sits in the dark with his cats and never wants to see or speak to anyone. He has no life, and is broken, like a wounded animal with no outlet and no hope, seeing only the dark side and the cruelty that exists in the world.
My only child has lost ten years of his youth and has aged and died before my eyes.
The National Autistic Society recommended several consultant forensic psychiatrists including Dr Vermeulen, and both NAS and Gary’s solicitors invited the Home Office to appoint ‘any one’ of the said psychiatrists to assess Gary.
Gary’s solicitor had Gary assessed by Dr Vermeulen, one of the consultant forensic psychiatrists recommended by NAS.
Dr Vermeulen, a consultant forensic psychiatrist and Home Office-approved expert in assessing risk, in his April 2012 report defined Gary as being UNFIT FOR TRIAL and at EXTREME SUICIDE RISK.
There is no disagreement between Dr Vermeulen, Professor Baron-Cohen and Professor Turk’s opinion.
The judges were also surprised that the acting Chief Medical Officer for the Home Office had appointed a doctor who was not an expert in the condition to assess Gary. They said that they could not tell the Home Office which expert to choose but felt that an expert in the field should have been appointed.
The judges had assumed that the court dates set for 24 and 25 July were for them to hear Gary’s case. They seemed annoyed at Mr Keith for not having informed them that 24 July was only a contingency court date, but they decided to go along with it anyway, to give us further time to choose whether or not to agree to Gary seeing the doctor who lacked the required expertise.
We were happy to rely on the existing very new medical reports, but decided to accept the additional time offered in order to provide further explanation from Dr Vermeulen, which the judges thought would be helpful.
The point of that day’s hearing appeared to be to force Gary to have yet more medical assessments. These would then
supersede the brand-new assessments which were all in his favour. We wondered why the prosecutor was bothering do this, given that he appeared totally confident that the Home Secretary would rule against Gary.
We were getting close to the end and I was so worried about the
in absentia
medical reports from the Home Office doctors that I felt I needed to get some independent advice as to what action I could take.
On 9 July I visited an important doctor who knew his stuff and had a reputation that carried weight. Dr C. read the ‘before’ report by the doctor who had conducted a face-to-face
examination
of Gary and then written the contrasting ‘after’ report without seeing Gary, once the said doctor was appointed by the Home Office. Dr C. said that I had a strong case, as there was no basis to explain the doctor’s radically altered opinion after he was engaged by the Home Office.
The next morning I was searching through the online
newspapers
and couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw the headline ‘Gary McKinnon hacking prosecution called “ridiculous” by US defence expert’.
‘Hackers like McKinnon should be recruited, not prosecuted, if the US wants to dominate cyber-warfare,’ said Professor John Arquilla.
This was the best news I had heard in a long time. John Arquilla was an expert in naval warfare and in ‘cyber-warfare’ – in fact, he was the one who had coined this phrase. His opinion carried real weight, and I was so proud of him for bravely
standing
up for a vulnerable British man he had never met.
It was also good to see the compassionate face of the US: there had been so many anti-American comments in various publications because of the perception that we were being bullied and abused by overzealous US prosecutors.
Professor John Arquilla was an intellectual who worked with and understood hackers – he described them as being like shy woodland creatures. Up until now I hadn’t encountered any intellectuals in this field who were involved in prosecutions of cybercrime.
• • •
Dr Vermeulen saw Gary again on 22 July and attended court on 24 July in order to give evidence if the judges needed it.
I submitted another statement to the court:
Being locked in a permanent state of fear has not only destroyed my son Gary’s life, but is destroying my husband’s health and our family’s lives.
It seems one of the very few people still intent on
extradition
in Gary’s case is the same Home Office adviser who advised Alan Johnson on Gary’s case.
To say that refusing to extradite in Gary’s case would set a precedent seems something of a red herring when reviewing the cases below.
1. The extradition to America of American-born Mrs Beatrice Tollman was refused on medical grounds by Britain in 2006, despite her medical evidence being unchallenged by the Home Office. (A friend of Mrs Thatcher.)
2. The extradition to America of American-born Mr Stanley Tollman was refused by Britain in 2007 and he was allowed to plead guilty ‘via video link’ and was given one day’s suspended sentence. (A friend of Mrs Thatcher.)
3. The extradition of accused bomber/alleged IRA terrorist was refused by Britain in 2006. (A friend of Gerry Adams.)
4. American/Irish convicted paedophile Shawn Sullivan, who
is a fugitive from America and is officially listed as one of the ‘most wanted’ criminals by America, had his extradition to the US refused by Britain in 2012. (Married to MOJ policy manager.)
5. Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York, whose trial is
underway
in absentia
in Turkey, had her extradition refused by Britain. (A member of the royal family.)
However, I fully agree with the Duchess of York’s actions as her motives were the protection of vulnerable children. None of the above can be tried in Britain for their alleged crimes.
6. Hacker Ryan Cleary was allegedly part of an
international
hacking group, and has admitted hacking into the Pentagon, NASA and the US Air Force. Ryan Cleary was tried in the UK and given a short sentence.
7. Aaron Caffrey, arrested in 2002 for allegedly breaching US security systems and bringing Port Houston to a halt immediately after 9/11, was tried in the UK and acquitted.
In 2002 the CPS intended to and were keen to try Gary in the UK as it was an open-and-shut case as Gary had naively admitted to computer misuse without having a lawyer. The British police informed Gary when he was questioned in 2002 that he could expect a sentence of six months’
community
service. However, the CPS was ‘ordered’ later in 2002 to hand Gary’s case to the US for them to deal with it.
Is There an Appetite to Extradite?
According to Keith Vaz, chairman of the HASC, America no longer has an appetite to extradite in Gary’s case. Mr Vaz learned this during the HASC’s recent visit to America.
President Obama announced on TV during a May 2011 joint worldwide press conference with David Cameron that Gary’s case was a British decision that America would respect and accept.
John Arquilla, an expert in cyber-warfare who is an American defence adviser to the US government, came out publicly in July 2012 to say that prosecuting Gary McKinnon would be ridiculous.
Mr Arquilla’s colleague, also in the military, said in July 2012 that Gary should not be jailed.
During the 2009 ‘JR’ against the CPS it was agreed in court that Gary had committed significantly less serious offences than other British hackers who had been given no sentence, or a very low sentence, in the UK, and the CPS stated that the US had provided only ‘hearsay’ in Gary’s case.
As the Home Secretary has not yet made her decision on my son Gary, I don’t understand why Gary’s legal team expects that on 24 July 2012 that the judges will give direction for service of evidence and skeleton arguments and fix a court date.
This seems premature, as to do so would, I feel, set up a clear expectation in the minds of the public and the media of an adverse decision being given by the Home Secretary.
I believe to create this expectation of defeat before the Home Secretary has even made her decision would be in the interests of only the prosecution.
Compassion has always been an essential part of natural British justice and I weep at the unrelenting cruelty being imposed on Gary and on our family.
Gary hasn’t murdered, raped or hurt anyone and cannot understand why this is happening to him.
We desperately need a just, speedy and compassionate end to this seemingly never-ending mental torture.
I have faith that the Home Secretary will rule in Gary’s favour and will keep Gary here in the UK where he belongs.
We wait with bated breath for a good and compassionate end to my son Gary’s ten-year nightmare.
Yours sincerely,
Janis Sharp (Gary McKinnon’s mum)