Saving Gary McKinnon by Janis Sharp

have crashed into their car and got Gary away and I could have hidden him.’
    ‘We couldn’t, Janis, you’re not thinking logically.’
    ‘I am thinking logically, he can’t go there, he’d never survive, you know that!’
    ‘I know that but the Americans have sat on it for over three years and how are they going to explain that to the judge? The courts won’t extradite him and he’ll get bail until it’s sorted out, it’ll be OK.’
    ‘What if he doesn’t get bail? And even if he does it will probably be about £100,000 and we couldn’t afford anything like that in a million years.’
    ‘You’re panicking, Janis.’
    ‘I’m panicking, I am, I’m panicking. Will you go and see to the children, Wilson? I need to try and get myself together and I don’t want them to see me being upset.’
    ‘OK. Don’t worry, Janis, it’ll be OK.’
    We were now caring for a group of five young siblings and I was fighting hard to remain calm.
    Losing control was rare for me but this heart-stopping fear left me clutching at the air in desperation for something or someone to appear out of the blue and to make everything OK again.
    ‘I wish you were here, Mamma, I’m scared and I don’t know what to do.’
    • • •
    The 2003 extradition treaty wasn’t supposed to be used retrospectively, so how could our courts allow this? The US had been sitting on Gary’s case since 2002 when they issued an arrest warrant and announced their intention to extradite, yet the CPS hadn’t made them produce prima facie evidence as they were obliged to do at that time. Instead, the US had been permitted to wait until 2005 before getting a UK arrest warrant forextradition, by which time the 2003 UK–US treaty was being used by the UK and evidence was no longer required to extradite any British citizen. However, the treaty was still not ratified by the US. How could this be allowed? They could never justify a three-year delay in court, surely?
    I wasn’t able to see Gary until the next day, when he was brought to Bow Street Magistrates’ Court. We had never been there although we knew the area well.
    We passed the beautiful sculpture of the ballet dancer glinting in the sunlight as she sat pensively, with head bowed, outside Bow Street Court, as though sensing the worry of the troubled people filing past her before they walked through the imposing courtroom doors into the dark and dismal foyer full of desperate people.
    The contrast of walking from the light into the gloom and seeing unfortunates huddled with their lawyers in darkened corners of this Dickensian scene was chilling. It’s one of those places you don’t want to go into and can’t wait to get out of.
    The inside had panelled wooden walls and smelled old and musty, the way those historic buildings do. It was a place of wigs and hierarchy and sombreness. I wore a long black unbuttoned coat dress, with black trousers and top underneath and I was now feeling the heat on this hot June day. Presumably because of my black clothes, I was mistaken for a barrister when I was in the foyer and security allowed me to go through first.
    Old school friends of Gary’s were there and journalists were everywhere. This was the first time I had met Lucy and it was under the darkest of circumstances. I removed my long black coat as I walked into the courtroom, and could feel the eyes of the journalists on us.
    Gary hadn’t arrived and I was worried. Had something happened to him that they hadn’t told us? Had he been attacked by the man sharing the cell?
    Eventually Gary arrived very late because the prison guards had forgotten about him. It was unbelievable: they had actually forgotten about him and had to get another van to collect him from Brixton Prison to bring him to the court.
    I had visions of hijacking the van and rescuing Gary and getting him to a place of safety. You have an absolute duty to protect your child and if you leave it too late and they are carted off to a land