Saving Gary McKinnon (21 page)

It was clear that the children, who knew our friends well, were happy and being well cared for during these few hours.

We walked into the TV studios and Alastair Campbell was there. I had never met him before and we talked briefly, but I felt too upset to say much.

I was feeling tearful as I was worried about Gary and I was
worried about the children. During the interview I was
fighting
to hold back tears as I’d had to do many times before and I managed it, but only just. Everything that was happening seemed so cruel and unnecessary.

I cancelled the next interview as Wilson and I had to get back home to say goodbye to the children. I had also lost a
primetime
BBC slot that would have helped Gary’s case.

Rebecca rang us again when we were on the train to tell us that the local authority might be collecting the children directly from our friend’s house. Not only might we lose our chance to say goodbye to the children, but Pauline and Steve would be upset about social workers possibly barging into their house when their autistic son was there.

When we got home after collecting the children from our friends, the social workers were waiting in a car outside our house.

I was dreading telling little Tommy that he was going to another house, as he was so settled with us and had been coming on in leaps and bounds. The young local authority social
workers
were nice, and sensitive to everyone’s feelings. They were uncomfortable about the unplanned removal of the children and didn’t seem to understand themselves why our friends, who had just adopted their autistic foster child and had a local authority CRB check, were deemed unsuitable as babysitters because their CRB check had not been commissioned by the very fostering agency they had worked for for years. Nothing was making sense to me any more. The unnecessary removal of the children from a very happy home resonated with the
unbearable
fear of Gary, our own son, being forcibly removed from his home and family to be locked up in a horrendous foreign prison thousands of miles away from everyone and everything he had ever known.

It was odd as, although we had never had a lot of money, we used to live a kind of charmed life – but suddenly, in a heartbeat, our lives were embroiled in a nightmarish reality.

Watching a usually happy and energetic three-year-old, who rarely cried, sitting quietly and completely still on the sofa while his lip trembled until he was physically sick was the saddest thing. I sat him on my lap to try and comfort him.

This totally unplanned removal of the children at their bedtime was difficult for everyone but our concern was the effect on the children, who everyone agreed had settled so well with us. They didn’t understand what was happening. Had the move been planned so that we could have introduced little Tommy and his baby sister to the new carers, it would have been so much easier on them. A sudden removal from a happy home usually has a detrimental effect on a child, and who really knows how deeply felt or how long-lasting this will be.

The local authority social worker called the agency social worker the following day to say she had not been happy about how the placement had ended the previous night.

No complaint was ever made against us.

Rebecca the social worker turned up at our home the next morning with her manager, and both appeared to be in
superiority
mode. I was sad and tired so was going to let it go, but when they came into our house, seeming to pull rank and
attempting
to treat us like wayward children, I decided I’d had enough. Whether it was US officials or agency social workers, I felt I had to fight this injustice. I didn’t want what had just happened to happen to other children and to carers less able to stand up for themselves.

I pointed out that current government guidelines said that using trusted friends to babysit was the preferred choice. They then responded by saying that the agency’s rules were of a higher
standard than either the local authority’s or the government’s. Hearing someone try to justify the wrong that had happened by saying something that to me sounded so silly would have been embarrassing and laughable if it hadn’t been so desperately sad.

On the local authority’s own website it quotes regulations stating that only trusted friends should be used to babysit and if a foster carer or local authority feels that a babysitter has to have a CRB check undertaken then that person should not be babysitting.

Rebecca later said that the reason for the unplanned removal of the children was because we left them with a carer who did not have a CRB check. Yet when Rebecca and her manager came to discuss the matter after the event, one of them suggested that it was acceptable to leave foster children with a neighbour for a few hours, which was in direct contradiction to everything they had said and is something I would never do.

The agency and local authorities had signed up to the
government
guidelines. Tim Loughton, under-secretary of state for children, said: ‘I would like your help in promoting the clear default position that children should as far as possible be allowed the same opportunities to take part in normal everyday activities as would reasonably be granted by parents to their own birth children. We also need to challenge the myths around CRB – and tackle excessive administration that may have arisen around the day to day parenting decisions of foster carers.’

To undermine such a sensible policy from a government minister, brought in to prevent foster children from being marginalised and made to feel different from their peers,
undermines
both the carers and the very children who were intended to benefit from that policy. Foster children need to feel that they are part of a family, and that includes the carers’ extended family and trusted friends who are an essential part of their lives.

I decided to lodge a complaint. The agency acted swiftly and professionally and a highly competent senior manager sorted it out, put us back on the vacancy list and everyone agreed that the removal of the children should never have happened.

We were asked to foster again soon afterwards but we declined and weren’t sure whether we should ever foster again.

However, I have to say that the agency we work for is one of the very best and fully supports their carers. We have also worked with some fine social workers, who work extremely hard to protect vulnerable children and families.

P
ensioner Christopher Tappin was extradited on 24 February 2012 and he and his family were devastated. Seeing Christopher saying goodbye to his wife Elaine at Heathrow airport was heartrending.

Gary was hugely upset by this and said, in a matter-of-fact kind of way, that they should have taken their own lives to avoid Christopher being extradited. To Gary this was the logical answer to escape the terror.

Mrs Tappin was in tears as her husband, who was also her carer, was extradited to the US to face however many years’ imprisonment. Mrs Tappin has a rare illness and her prognosis is not good, and for Mr Tappin, aged sixty-five, the stress of extradition could easily lead to a heart attack or a stroke,
meaning
they might never see each other again.

Elaine Tappin was bravely giving evidence to the Home Affairs Select Committee and I was in the audience, as were David Bermingham and Melanie Riley. We were very moved listening to Elaine eloquently delivering her evidence while struggling emotionally.

When Elaine had completed her account, Attorney General
Dominic Grieve and Director of Public Prosecutions Keir Starmer gave their evidence.

They had not been present to listen to Mrs Tappin’s emotive evidence and to see how much she hurt, as she bravely fought back tears, some of which escaped and rolled down her cheeks, tugging at everyone’s heartstrings.

When the Director of Public Prosecutions and the Attorney General started talking they began to appear more like a couple of wayward schoolboys doing a gig, acting smart and smiling
inappropriately
when answering questions from the Home Affairs Select Committee. They seemed totally lacking in empathy and their demeanour and answers made them sound foolishly insensitive but I don’t believe they had any conception of this, or of the lives being ruined by the extradition treaty.

Journalist Quentin Letts was annoyed at their behaviour and said loudly at the end of the session, ‘Bad show, boys, very bad show.’

I couldn’t understand it. Keir Starmer had written six books on human rights. I had such faith and expected so much more of him as DPP, but when I made a point of speaking to him after the session there was no trace of understanding.

‘I’m feeling very uncomfortable,’ said Mr Starmer. ‘Speaking to you is making me feel very uncomfortable.’

Did he have any idea how that sounded to me, when he was supporting the extradition of my son to some foreign hellhole?

When I told the DPP of the mental torment Gary had been living in for a decade, he responded with the same stock phrases that officialdom used: that it had been through many courts and they had all agreed that extradition should take place. Yet officialdom knew full well that no evidence was required to extradite anyone from the UK anymore, that allegations could no longer be contested in extradition cases, and that ‘having
been through all of the courts’ meant nothing, as the judges’ hands were basically tied because of the iniquitous one-sided treaty that the DPP was now apparently trying to defend.

Writing about human rights is one thing, but actually
upholding
human rights is another. It requires action and the courage to acknowledge that even countries such as the UK and the US are capable of abusing human rights.

Would our Director of Public Prosecutions and our Attorney General really feel able to look a man in the eye who had been locked up in solitary confinement for an inordinate number of years, and say to that man that it made them feel uncomfortable?

If not radically changed, the effects of this treaty will be a damning legacy left to the children and grandchildren of those who defend it, as well as of those who fought to change it, and of those who did nothing.

One of the things that shocked me during my ten-year fight was the discovery that some senior unelected government
officials
seem to believe that it is they who are running our country rather than our elected politicians.

The same advisers are often there through successive
governments
and some have worked under – or should I say ‘over’ – six or seven different Home Secretaries and seem to think that politicians are merely front-men for their policies.

Our elected leaders are constantly sent out to do ‘appearances’ which keep them so busy that without working 24/7 they can end up rubber-stamping crucial decisions that are being made by the same old unelected officials. Is this democracy?

Programmes like
Yes, Minister
and
The Thick of It
are
uncomfortably
closer to the truth than most people realise and without leaders who have the guts to make their own decisions,
democracy
could be all but lost.

I was up against UK government advisers as well as the might
of the US government. I knew they were capable of crushing even the most powerful – but the power of love is an awesome force, and I had that.

Some politicians can forget that the reason they are there is because they work for us and were elected to protect our interests.

Whenever judges and the government talk about a case being ‘in the public interest’ I’m at a loss to know just who they believe the public are.

However, there are some incredible politicians out there on all sides of the political spectrum, who really do dedicate their lives to helping their constituents and strive to make the UK a better place to live in.

David Cameron was going to America on 12 March. Two people rang from the House of Commons to tell me that, among other things, he was going to raise the extradition treaty with President Obama.

Gary and I were afraid to get our hopes up again, as Prime Minister Cameron and President Obama had spoken about Gary at both their joint worldwide press conferences and here we were, still waiting and still worrying.

I was glad that Samantha Cameron was going to the US with her husband. David Cameron had been fighting hard for Gary and for a fairer extradition treaty and I didn’t want that to change. When he flew on Air Force One without his wife, I was afraid that he might be compromised or ‘got at’ in some way.

So many leaders become almost unrecognisable once in power that I sometimes wonder if they’ve been cloned. Obviously I don’t really believe that, but what the heck causes some people
to change so much once elected that their personalities can become so different?

I did more interviews as TV and radio also got wind of the fact that David Cameron might be raising Gary’s case again with President Obama.

We were also waiting to receive copies of the
in absentia
medical
reports from the Home Office-instructed doctors. When they finally arrived they were worse than we expected.

One doctor, without seeing Gary, had totally altered his
opinion
from his original – and only face-to-face – assessment. His new report bore virtually no resemblance to the original, yet the original had been based on even stronger face-to-face
assessments
by eminent psychiatrists.

Channel 4 News
was shocked at the glaring discrepancies between the assessments and Cathy Newman did a big piece that evening, pointing out, line by line, the stark differences in the doctor’s medical opinion on Gary once he had been instructed by the Home Office.

Shami from Liberty appeared on the news and made it clear exactly what she thought of this incomprehensible change of opinion.

The BBC started running a ticker along the bottom of their screen saying words to the effect that Gary was no longer a suicide risk and was likely to be extradited.

Gary was distraught. I was angry. Friends were ringing up, shocked and upset, thinking that we’d lost and that Gary would take his own life.

I didn’t believe that what had just happened was anything to do with the government; however, unelected senior officials in government were another story.

The Home Office had given us a very short time to respond to their
in absentia
medical reports and we decided that the best form
of response was for Gary to have three new face-to-face medical assessments from Professor Simon Baron-Cohen and Professor Jeremy Turk, both leaders in the field, and Dr Jan Vermeulen. The NAS, among others, recommended Dr Vermeulen, a Home Office-approved consultant forensic psychiatrist who had conducted countless assessments on behalf of the Home Office and was their expert witness in numerous court cases.

Why on earth the woman who was standing in as the Chief Medical Officer chose not to appoint any of the experts
recommended
by the National Autistic Society remained beyond my comprehension.

I spoke to Karen and she instructed all three doctors to do separate, urgent, up-to-date assessments of Gary’s mental health and suicide risk.

I also wrote out my witness statement for Karen to submit to the Home Office.

Sky News and ITV wanted me to do interviews again and ITN sent a car to collect us. The driver who arrived to take us home afterwards was a Jamaican man with a really cool accent, as opposed to the Ja-fake’an accent which a lot of younger people who have never left London tend to use when trying to impersonate the real McCoy.

I love a real Jamaican accent where Jaguar is pronounced ‘Jagwwa’. In fact I love accents and I hate it when some people say, ‘Oh! You’ve still got a Scottish accent,’ as though it’s
something
I should have lost the second I set foot in London. I usually respond by saying, ‘If you went to live in Scotland do you think you would acquire a Scottish accent?’ And almost without fail they say ‘No!’

The taxi’s sat-nav wasn’t working, the driver had no idea where he was going, and he looked tired, really hangdog,
dead-in
-the-water-type tired. He could barely keep his head up and
was struggling, the way you do when you’ve been working all day and night and can’t think properly.

He got a call from his office telling him that his next stop after he dropped us off was Cornwall, to pick up CDs from a well-known band and bring them straight back to London.

‘Cornwall!’ I exclaimed. ‘We’re in London; do you know how far away Cornwall is?’

‘Half an hour away?’ said the driver hopefully.

‘No! It’s about 300 miles away and will take you about four or five hours to get there and another five hours to get back and I can see you’re already almost falling asleep.’

‘Three hundred miles away? Are you sure?’

‘I’m sure.’

We stopped and showed him where Cornwall was on the map. With the sat-nav not working, finding his way in the dark was going to be even harder.

He laughed, a cool resignation kind of laugh. ‘I have to go,’ he said. ‘I’m working off a debt to the man who runs the taxi firm and that man is a hard taskmaster.’

‘Well, isn’t there someone you can take with you to share the driving? You’ll never make it otherwise.’

I felt sure he would have an accident if he drove all that way and I eventually persuaded him to phone one of his friends, who as it turned out was happy to go to Cornwall. We stopped off at his friend’s house to pick him up and much to my relief his friend was alert, wide awake and in good humour.

They dropped us off at home and we wished them well but I was annoyed at the exploitation of people that still goes on today. Whatever the driver owed the man who owned the taxi firm, I bet he had paid back his debt a hundred times over.

When we got in the door we were hungry, but had to take the dogs out before we could eat. When we got back I was
too tired to even hold a cup in my hand and fell fast asleep, head on table, in front of the computer, which I had switched on in the vain attempt to write a letter. Wilson woke me up with tea and biscuits and we watched some TV and then went to bed.

Dr Vermeulen rang to arrange to see Gary on 1 April to do another assessment. It was so odd, as the first time we had taken Gary to see him a year ago it had also been April Fool’s Day. I think fate has a weird sense of humour.

Days later we took Gary to Cambridge by train to have a new assessment with Professor Simon Baron-Cohen. Just leaving the house had been incredibly hard for Gary. His entire future would be based on these assessments and he was in a desperate state of mind. I wanted to comfort him but there was nothing I could say to pull him back from the brink. It was agonising to see him like this and at that moment I could understand why he thought death would be an escape.

We took Gary to Trinity College, with its cobbled
pathways
and castellated exterior, with arched entrances, mullioned windows and medieval oak-panelled doors. Wilson and I left Gary with Professor Baron-Cohen for his assessment while we wandered around Cambridge. The narrow, cobbled streets and little cafés and street markets are lovely to walk around, and a bicycle being the most popular mode of transport adds to the university town atmosphere.

When we went back to collect Gary, Simon asked us to come back later as he needed more time. Gary had been crying, a release he desperately needed. For so long he had seemed almost frozen and stiff, with clenched teeth and hands and a rigidity of
mind and body, which were ill equipped to contain the turmoil, tension and terror he was experiencing.

After the up-to-date assessment of Gary’s mental state was over, for some reason I felt a huge wave of relief as we headed back to the train station. It turned out that the next train wasn’t due for another hour, so we went for tea in a Turkish café close to the station. Gary and I had green peppermint tea with real peppermint leaves, Wilson had Turkish coffee and we had the best-tasting cakes, some with fresh strawberries. It was just so nice sitting there. No one knew where we were so we felt safe. We asked for the bill and the woman told us it was £80.

‘Eighty pounds!’ exclaimed Wilson. ‘How can it be £80?’

After a lot of discussion with the owner, it transpired that it was eighteen pounds, and the confusion was in the accent.