Dear President Obama,

          This is the most important letter I will ever write as my  son Gary’s life depends on it.

          To see my son Gary intent on taking his own life because he  would rather be dead than to be dragged from the Island he was born on and  removed from the family he depends on, is to my mind reminiscent of what happened to slaves in days  gone by and to Jewish people in Germany during the second world war. 

          Contrary to popular belief it was not only black people who  were kidnapped and sold as slaves. The same thing happened to Scottish and  Irish people as long ago as 1630. People were  kidnapped, betrayed and sold by their own people and  sent to American colonies and plantations. Tens of thousands of the kidnapped  white slaves were children and is where the word kidnapped came from. 
          According to the Egerton  Manuscript in the British Museum, the law enacted in 1652  allowed Judges to ship Scottish people to a foreign  colony or plantation.          

The U.S/U.K 2003  Extradition Treaty is a similar unjust law in that it is one of the  worst betrayals ever inflicted by a British government on its own people, as it  has removed our right to have evidence presented that can be contested by us in  a British Court before being forcibly dragged from the Island we were born  in. 
           Without evidence of a serious crime Americans are  protected from the terror of extradition and are tried in their own country.  Surely British people deserve to have equal rights and to be treated with equal  consideration to that of almost every other citizen in almost every other  country in the world. People from Israel and from Romania have recently hacked  into the Pentagon and have been tried in their own country and given suspended/very  short sentences without any requests from the U.S for Extradition.
          Equality of people regardless of creed, colour or ability is  a measure of our humanity towards each other.

          Gary has Aspergers Syndrome, a form of Autism.  He is  no ordinary man, he is extraordinary. Gary is intelligent, vulnerable, gentle  and naive to the core. When searching for information on UFO’s he discovered  that there were no passwords or firewalls on American military computers, so  being Gary, he left cyber notes telling the U.S military to improve their  security as a matter of urgency. When Gary got no response he left a cyber note  saying that he would continue to disrupt at the highest level [by leaving cyber  notes] until someone paid attention.

          Gary had a primitive computer and was on a dial up  connection in his flat in North London at the time of his offence ten years ago.

          I understand totally the need for computer security and in  an odd way Gary’s naive actions have ‘hopefully’  resulted in U.S military computer security being improved.

          The Extradition Treaty between our countries was never  intended to be used against someone like Gary but was designed for terrorists  and the like and for people who had fled from a country where they had  committed a heinous crime. In Gary’s case no heinous crime was committed and he  has not fled from any country so cannot be ‘returned’ there. The 2003  Extradition Treaty was not even written at the time of Gary’s computer misuse or his arrest in March  2002, so he was unable to understand the consequences.

          When someone  who is mentally fragile feels so much dread, fear and terror over the prospect  of being dragged from his homeland to incarceration in America that he would  rather embrace death! For our governments to  then literally force him to submit to what in his opinion is a terror worse  than death, is nothing less than inhumane torture and punishment far in excess  of that fitting the crime.
          To inflict  such extreme agony on an individual in order to make an example of him in  another country is far too high a moral price to pay. Why would any government with an ounce of compassion wish to do this when  anyone can see that it would be morally wrong?
          Gary realises and accepts that he  was wrong to access US computers. However, his eccentric crime, born of his  obsessional interest, does not merit the torment he has suffered ever since he  understood that the US were determined to remove him from the land he was born  in to take him 5000 miles away from his home, family and support network.
          Gary has effectively already lost nine years of his life. He  has never tried to avoid Justice but asks only to be tried in the U.K.  In terms of the law it  does not matter which country Gary is tried in but it is in the interest of  humanity and natural justice for Gary to be tried in the U.K.
          Compassion  is the mark of civilization and is exactly what distinguishes our society both  from anarchy and from tyranny. There is no doubt that what Gary did  was foolish in the extreme but our country has had a long tradition of being  tolerant of peaceful protest and no one in  the world has ever been extradited for hacking. For someone like Gary to be the  first would be a damning indictment of U.S and U.K Justice.

In the first  Worldwide Press Conference with David Cameron, you mentioned the friendship  between the U.S and the U.K and said words to the effect that an appropriate  way forward would be found.
          Surely as  President, the only logical and compassionate way forward is for you to show  the compassion that a man of your stature is capable of and to agree to a British Trial for my son Gary McKinnon.
          Every morning I wake up with a heavy  heart often finding it difficult to put one foot in front of the other. Every  night my heart is filled with terror at the thought of losing my only child.
Gary does not deserve to be driven  to suicide, or to suffer irreversible damage to his mental health, or to face  the prospect of ending his life in a foreign prison or dying in a mental  institution as my grandmother did.

Gary does not deserve either a real  or a virtual death sentence.

I do not deserve to lose my only  child.

Please  Help

During the Presidents Visit Prime Minister David Cameron and Barack Obama gave a joint press conference to the worlds media and only four
questions were allowed,  two from American Journalists and two from British Journalists. The topics discussed were Libya, Palestine, The Global Economy and…… Gary McKinnon.

When asked by Tom Bradby ITN, The President Obama replied

 ”We have confidence in the British legal system coming to a just conclusion, and so we will await resolution and we will be respectful of that process.”

Furthermore, Prime Minister David Cameron added:

“The case is in front of the home secretary who has to consider reports about Gary’s health and his well-being and it is right that she does that in a proper and effectively quasi-judicial way. I totally understand the anguish of his mother and family about this issue. We must follow the proper processes and make sure this case is dealt with in the proper way and I am sure that is the case.”

The BBC reported it here

I believe the government here has always been mindful of how America would react to a refusal of extradition. Now, at last, the President
has said that America will accept and respect a UK decision (and will not Oppose it). The decision is now thankfully in the hands of the Coalition,
who were committed to Gary remaining in the U.K and who promised to change the 2003 extradition treaty as it was never intended to be used in a case like Gary’s and had in fact been intended only for use against terrorists and the like.

Prime Minister David Cameron said

“I simply see no compassion in sending him away to serve a lengthy prison sentence, thousands of miles away from his home, his family and his friends.

‘If he has questions to answer, there is a clear argument to be made that he should answer them in a British court.’

“The Extradition Act was put in place to ensure terrorists didn’t escape justice. It was never intended to deal with a case like Gary’s.”

“It should still mean something to be a British citizen – with the full protection of the British Parliament, rather than a British Government trying to send you off to a foreign court”

This case raises serious questions about the workings of the Extradition Act, which should be reviewed.”

 Dominic Grieve, the Attorney General said

‘The Gary McKinnon case throws into sharp relief the crude and clumsy extradition procedures Britain now has in place.

‘The Extradition Act was introduced after 9/11, so that we could fast-track terrorist suspects to face trial abroad. The intention was reasonable. But it was never intended to operate in cases like this, diluting the safeguards protecting such a vulnerable man – and a British citizen at that.

‘Ministers must make every effort to see justice done for Gary McKinnon.’

Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg said

“It is wrong. It is simply wrong for our government to have signed a treaty in secret which sells our rights down the river while protecting the rights of American citizens. It is certainly wrong to send a vulnerable young man to his fate in the United States when he could and should be tried here instead. It is simply a matter of doing the right thing.” now have the opportunity to do so.

Now they Have the opportunity to do just that.

http://garystays.co.uk

The end destination of the train we were travelling on was to Glasgow Central station.  I haven’t been to Glasgow since my mum died in 1980 but it was as though a bolt of lightning had hit me. A well of tears suddenly flooded from somewhere deep inside me when I saw the destination of the train.  I had no idea that this was even in me but I suddenly remembered arriving in London with Gary when he was little, just six years old at the time and I wanted to be able to somehow go back in time to change everything that’s happened. I also had a desperate urge to grab Gary and to take him back to Glasgow to safety.

Suddenly I couldn’t stop the tears from flowing as something had opened up a part deep inside of me  that had unleashed a depth of emotion that took me aback  and totally overwhelmed me.  

Logically I know that Gary would be no more safe in Glasgow than in London and I love London, it’s my home now but it was an instinctive thing of somehow getting my son to safety and Glasgow my birth town instinctively and illogically seemed like safety to me.  Even writing this is making the tears flow again.

Isn’t it odd that we often don’t even know ourselves just what’s locked up inside of us and  the depth of emotion suppressed but living in the very heart of you.

I’m still shaken by this

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Because of a volcanic dust cloud from Iceland all U.K flights were cancelled. The train was jam packed with no available seats. When the train was about to leave we sat in someone elses reserved seats but Virgin decided to delay the train departure  by fifteen minutes, so the holder of the reserved tickets apologetically and rightly claimed his seats back.  

I thought we’d have to stand all the way to Blackburn but the lady serving tea told us we could go into the first class dining carriage as there were empty seats there that we could use. I was so glad we didn’t have to stand all the way. All the corridors were packed with people and bags and several others who were standing were also directed to first class seats so it was a good journey after all with tea and sandwiches.

 On the train we got a call from Mike West, a presenter for BBC Radio Lancashire asking me to do an interview when we were there. We arrived in Blackburn and went straight to the Town Hall, handed in my papers and paid the £500 deposit.

 When we came out I talked to some people in Blackburn and asked what changes really mattered to them in their lives that they believed a good politician could help them to achieve.

The first man said that holes in the road is what bothered him most.

The next person I spoke to was a young female student that said being free from student loans and debt is what mattered to her most. When I asked her about civil liberties she said that she wasn’t really political and never thought about that. Her inclination was to vote Conservative.

A young man I spoke to said that training or work opportunity was closest to his heart as he’d worked with young unemployed people and saw how the lack of work and money had affected them.  He was an undecided voter who was waiting to listen to the leaders debates before deciding.

 I spoke to a woman who was a Carer for a Down’s Syndrome child and her priority was to get more help for people with mental health issues and their Carers. This lady did care about civil liberties and felt they weren’t being addressed by politicians. 

Many people I spoke to didn’t vote and had no intention of doing so as they no longer had faith in any politicians.

 We then headed off for radio Lancashire and did a short interview with Mike West. He basically asked me only one question several times and wanted me to say that I was standing only to gain more publicity for Gary in order to stop him being extradited. He also said that I wasn’t really interested in civil liberties was I?  

Everyone that knows me knows that I’ve always cared deeply about civil liberties and that I’m greatly concerned with the erosion of them and believe that we all have to stand up and speak out in order to fight for and retain our civil liberties that are being eroded by Labour faster than we could ever have thought possible.

 It reminds me of Orwell’s 1984 and how the majority of people are compliant until it’s too late.

——————————————————————————————————————–

 We then headed back to the Railway station to go home. We changed at Preston and found that our train was over one hour late. There were a lot of photographers and newsmen on the platform and one of them recognised me and started chatting. It turned out that they were permanently travelling around with Gordon Brown during his election campaign.

He said that as Gordon Brown had been rehearsing for tonight’s leaders debate, to prevent the press from becoming bored the Labour party had arranged for them to  spend the day with Peter Mandelson. Apparently Peter Mandelson put on a dance/show for them in Blackpool  and was by all accounts a pretty good dancer.

 The journalist was as concerned as us about the erosion of civil liberties and we spent almost an hour talking and before we knew it the train arrived. We got into London’s Euston station well over an hour late but got back just in time to see the first ever televised leaders debate.

People are disillusioned with the career politicians feathering their expansive expenses. Many people are beginning to realise that rather than not voting or feeling that their vote is wasted, that giving it to the independents and smaller parties gives a boost to real democracy.

Labour are making promises to do things they have had thirteen years to do and haven’t managed yet but many traditional Labour voters are being fooled again because they’re desperate to believe in the party they once trusted.
The reason I decided to stand as a candidate in this election is because rights and freedoms that brave men and women gave their lives for are being eroded and removed by this government faster than we could ever have thought possible. It reminds me of how freedoms were eroded in Germany and the Nazis came into power because no one stood up or spoke up against the madness that was taking place and at this moment in time we need everyone to stand together and to shout out until their voices are heard.  
I truly believe that if we don’t stand up now it might be too late and we’ll never regain the freedoms lost. This definitely is “A Future Fear for All”. 

Labour has dragged us into  two illegal wars and as Jack Straw admitted at the Chilcott inquiry: If he had opposed the invasion into Iraq, he could have stopped that illegal war/invasion in its tracks but he chose war rather than bring down Tony Blair’s government.
So instead, according to United Nations figures, six hundred thousand men, women and children were killed plus many maimed by the bombing that ensued and our ill equipped young soldiers died for a war that we all now believe was more about oil  than justice.
 To add insult to injury it has recently been well publicised in the media that Tony Blair personally profited by millions of dollars through oil deals

They have misled us time and time again. And as for steering a course out of the financial crisis? Don’t be fooled… they allowed this to happen.
The first thing our Prime Minister did as Chancellor was to deregulate the banks. This gave them free reign to destroy the economy. Gordon Brown himself sold off our gold reserves, not only did he sell 400 tons of gold against all advice from the financial experts when the gold market was at its lowest, but he announced he was going to do it, so the price  fell to an even lower level before he sold our gold. Why would anyone do this?  
 
Our bank notes don’t say ‘I promise to pay the bearer the sum of five pounds in sterling’ anymore because they’ve sold our gold reserves and our country is virtually broke.  Our money is just  paper, becoming more worthless as they’ve been printing billions more and caling it quantitative easing. With each additional pound they print each pound is worth less and less. Our petrol  now costs us  approx. 20% more because our money has now devalued by approx 20% because we have been printing money without the gold reserves to back it up.  

The gap between rich and poor is greater now than ever before. Our ill equipped troops are dying in Afghanistan all for no clear reason that I can see, It certainly isn’t making our streets safer. The price being paid is astronomical both in terms of lives and money.

There are now machine guns on our streets, a virtually treasonable extradition treaty that my son who has Aspergers Syndrome is a victim of and draconian restrictions to our freedoms…

crime is up, healthcare down and education leaves a lot to be desired.

We have to break the mold before it is too late.