Saving Gary McKinnon (18 page)
Read Saving Gary McKinnon Online
Authors: Janis Sharp
Shortly after this the Home Office instructed their doctors to assess Gary
in absentia
i.e. without seeing him. Once again, I was shocked.
In the meantime Karen, Gary’s solicitor, asked Dr Vermeulen for an assessment. He was a Home Office-approved expert who had worked in Broadmoor Hospital for many years and had also performed hundreds of assessments on behalf of the Home Office, including being an expert witness in murder cases. We concluded that the Home Office could not ignore Dr Vermeulen’s evidence from his face-to-face assessments of Gary.
Karen Todner had stuck by Gary for years and always appointed the very best QCs, barristers and medical experts. She had saved Gary’s life on countless occasions by never giving up; even when we had supposedly come to the end, Karen, Ben and Edward, Gary’s legal team, always found another way to keep Gary here.
I knew we were firmly on the same side but as Gary’s mother I also had to follow my instincts.
Gary’s barrister, Ben Cooper, also fought long and hard for Gary and refused to give up on him and was determined to win.
Gary’s QC, Edward Fitzgerald, is gentle and kind. Whenever Edward’s wife rang him, he would always stop what he was doing and take the time to speak to her. The character played by Colin Firth in the film
Bridget Jones’s Diary
is reputed to be based on him.
He also studied all the evidence and paperwork beforehand and didn’t just look at the paperwork at the very last minute and then walk into the court and wing it.
Edward would also argue with me, sometimes heatedly, but we didn’t fall out and Edward didn’t storm off the case in a huff as many QCs could have done. Edward listened and discussed everything, as did Karen and Ben.
No QC or lawyer is infallible, no matter how revered they are. It’s important to make sure you fully understand what’s
happening
, trust your instincts and fight your corner if need be.
Edward said to me one day, ‘They think I can tell you what to do and they don’t understand that I can’t.’
I assumed Edward meant the judges and I wondered why anyone was trying to persuade Edward to tell me what to do. Of course, it could have been the DPP or even the prosecutor, but I suppose I’ll never know for sure.
Christmas and New Year was the saddest time: arguing with Gary’s legal team had made us really fed up. It’s always more upsetting to fight with people you like. We were all on the same side, but we each thought we were right, so the atmosphere was tense and highly charged.
I was working on Gary’s case on New Year’s Eve and I emailed Lord Carlile, not expecting an answer at two minutes past midnight, but he emailed me straight back with a very kind message that made me feel better. Gary’s barrister, Ben Cooper,
was also working on Gary’s case as the bells of Big Ben chimed to bring in the New Year.
When you’re feeling scared and vulnerable and are fighting against the odds, simple acts of kindness mean a lot.
Professor Turk was talking about Gary possibly having to be sectioned. The thought of my son being confined to a mental institution like his great-grandma terrified me. What was happening to Gary was wrong on every level. He had never hurt anyone and was gentle to the core. He was also very talented and seeing him imprisoned in fear for so many years was such a waste. He hadn’t touched a computer or a musical instrument since 2005.
Gary’s psychiatric treatment was expensive and the NHS trust had refused to pay for the care Gary was receiving from Professor Turk at the Maudsley Hospital. They said that Gary would have to see the local mental health services, but when we contacted the local mental health services they told us they had no one there with any expertise in ASD and to contact the National Autistic Society. But it was the NAS who had recommended Professor Turk, who the trust was refusing to pay for. It was a catch-22 situation.
We were incredibly lucky as David Gilmour and Alex Paterson from The Orb had donated royalties to pay for Gary’s lifelong psychiatric care. What happens to those who need expert care who can’t get it on the NHS and can’t afford to pay for it privately?
We were feeling stressed and once again Michael Seamark of the
Daily Mail
came to our rescue by taking us out for lunch. It was such a relief sitting there having pear tart, toffee sauce and ice cream, real comfort food. Just being in another environment to discuss our views and options was often extremely helpful, and Michael always managed to make us smile.
One late night the police brought a two-year-old boy and his baby sister to us as an emergency. When Michael Seamark arrived the following day to take us out for lunch and saw the babies, he just smiled. I said, ‘We can all go for lunch together, or we can’t go.’
Michael said, ‘Of course we will all go out to lunch.’
It was quite an upmarket restaurant and the baby slept
peacefully
in her carrycot by my side and the two-year-old sat happily in his high chair, smiling and eating.
It had now been eight months since the Home Secretary, Theresa May, had put a halt on extradition, and Gary’s anxiety was at an all-time high. ‘How long can this go on?’ I thought. It felt as though we were trapped in some sort of time warp that we couldn’t seem to get out of.
Julian Assange was in court on 7 February and I’d heard that he had chosen to come to the UK because Gary had managed to fight extradition for so many years, and Julian thought he would be safer in the UK. I wondered then if he had made the right decision.
• • •
We were still fostering the three young siblings for one weekend out of every month. Taking them swimming and on outings gave us respite from the relentless routine of working from dawn to dusk, and it was good to see them laughing and having fun.
After each enjoyable weekend the children went home and at the start of a new week I got back to working as hard as possible on the campaign. I wrote to Lord Maginnis and Baroness Browning to thank them for raising Gary’s case in the House of Lords.
Lord Maginnis quickly responded and told me about his extensive background in autism and that he was determined to do all he could to help Gary remain in the UK. Ken Maginnis
was a fighter with a wealth of experience in politics and in all things to do with autism.
Angela Browning wrote back with an invitation for me to meet her in the Palace of Westminster to discuss ways that she could help. We met there with Angela and with Gary’s MP, David Burrowes, the following week.
Baroness Browning is the vice-president of the National Autistic Society and has a first-class understanding of the
condition
. She talked to me about her son who also has Asperger’s and the challenges he faced. She also mentioned the time she had a meeting with adults with Asperger’s syndrome who were accompanied by their parents, who did all the talking. Eventually Angela asked one of their sons what he did for a living and he told her he was an astrophysicist.
Angela smiled and said that only in the Asperger’s
community
would you find adults who are astrophysicists and the like, all sitting silently around a table while their parents did all the talking for them.
David Burrowes and Baroness Browning suggested we cancel Gary’s appointment with Dr Vermeulen to give the Home Office an opportunity to agree to appoint him to assess Gary. Unfortunately, even with their input, the Home Office still wouldn’t budge on its insistence that Gary be assessed by a forensic psychiatrist with no expertise in ASD.
Lord Maginnis has a strong background in autism and always answered my emails, rang me, did TV interviews and stood by my side at 10 Downing Street. He raised Gary’s case in the Lords time and time again; he is a fighter who made his voice heard.
Lord Maginnis was a teacher and joined the army and left with the rank of major. He entered politics and was an Ulster
Unionist spokesman on internal security and defence. There were a number of attempts on his life, both as a soldier and as a politician. He described his relationship with religion as saying that ‘if my neighbour needed help, I’d help him and he would do the same for me. It didn’t matter where you went to Church on Sunday.’ He described his passion for rugby as being a good way of building relations between the north and south of Ireland.
Lord Maginnis raised Gary’s case in the Lords again on 23 March 2011 and the other lords came on board thick and fast.
Asked By Lord Maginnis of Drumglass
To ask Her Majesty’s government what recent discussions they have had with the government of the United States about the extradition of Gary McKinnon.
Lord Maginnis of Drumglass
: My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for that Answer, but it tells me little more than I already know. Is it not ironic that a Parliament which has voted against the lengthy detention of criminals should keep a young man suffering from the condition known as Asperger’s syndrome in psychological torture for more than 3,300 days? Is it not time for the Home Office to liaise with those who have expertise in autism? Perhaps the department should go to the National Autistic Society and ask for a list of people with expertise in the area rather than relying on the normal line of, ‘Let’s see what the Chief Medical Officer says.’
Baroness Browning
: My Lords, when I met Mr McKinnon’s mother last week, she informed me that his state of health is deteriorating all the time. I hope that my noble friend will be concerned to learn that Mr McKinnon spends every day behind closed curtains and does not participate in life as he used to.
When the Chief Medical Officer chooses an appropriate
psychiatrist or a panel, it is essential that the psychiatrist is someone who specialises in adults with an autistic spectrum disorder. That is because to date, the doctors who have seen Mr McKinnon at the behest of the government have not been specialists, and at the end of their investigations have openly admitted that this is not their specialist area.
Baroness Wilkins
: My Lords, does the Minister accept that Gary McKinnon had a history of mental health issues prior to any of these legal issues? Indeed, there is a history of mental illness on both sides of the family going back three
generations
. It is not just a matter of him having been diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome.
Lord Tebbit
: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that we are all sympathetic to him personally, for he is the victim of a very unfair, unbalanced extradition treaty? If he has any trouble with the American authorities, will he tell them that he has no more confidence that Mr McKinnon would get a fair trial there than some Americans had that IRA suspects would get a fair trial here when the extradition of IRA terrorists was refused by the United States on the basis that they could not get a fair trial in this country?
Lord Tebbit served with the Royal Air Force, during which he flew Meteor and Vampire jets and once had to break open the cockpit canopy of a burning Meteor aircraft to escape from it.
Lord Morris of Aberavon
: My Lords, are the government giving any consideration to the fairness of the extradition treaty and will they revisit it?
Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames
: My Lords, accepting the requirements of the extradition treaty and given that the
Home Office already has reports on Gary McKinnon’s case from two of the best-known experts on Asperger’s and autism – Professor Jeremy Turk and Professor Declan Murphy, both of the Institute of Psychiatry and both of whom are regularly relied upon by Her Majesty’s government in relation to these conditions – why has it concluded that it needs a further medical report, and why was it originally looking for a
non-specialist
report rather than specialist reports, which we now understand the Chief Medical Officer is hoping to provide?
Many politicians want to get rid of the House of Lords but I personally think they frequently act as a safety valve that can prevent unwise or hastily thought-out ideas being pushed through because of government knee-jerk reactions. Although some are political appointees, the lords often tend to act together as a counterbalance that can rein back the government with a tempering voice.
Shortly after the Lords debate we got a letter from the Treasury solicitor giving us seven days to agree to Gary being assessed for suicide risk by the same non-expert doctor we had consistently refused. I had no intention of allowing this.
Gary was assessed by Dr Vermeulen, for the first time on 1 April 2011, April Fool’s Day. We hoped this wasn’t a bad omen. Gary was incredibly nervous on the way into town and couldn’t understand why he had to keep having assessments as he had been assessed multiple times already and was seeing Professor Turk on a regular basis. We sat in the waiting room, which was also the waiting room for Icelandic Airways, and flipped through books with fascinating photos of Iceland.
The harsh-looking way of life was like stepping into the past. It looked cold and bleak and the people were very self-reliant, much as they were in the crofts in the Highlands of Scotland where my dad came from.
We all liked Dr Vermeulen the moment we met him. You knew you were in the presence of a gentle genius whose modesty attempted to disguise that fact. After talking with Gary, Dr Vermeulen interviewed Wilson and me at length and then spent several hours assessing Gary. It was a sunny day and we walked around London and sat in Fitzroy Square until Gary’s
assessment
was complete. Lucy arrived later and while she was being interviewed, Nadine Stavonina came in with a painting to help raise funds for Richard Mills’s Research Autism charity. Nadine and Bernard, who works for Research Autism, told us that at their last charity auction a painting of Gary by the Scottish artist Peter Howson had sold for a fair amount of money.
Dr Vermeulen visited Gary at home the following week to further assess him – and to do a safety check to ensure that Gary had limited opportunity to harm himself. Dr Vermeulen was a Home Office-approved forensic psychiatrist who had acted as an expert witness for the Home Office for many years. He was an expert through and through. He knew that Gary was an extreme suicide risk and was doing everything he could to prevent a tragedy from occurring.