their indictment of Gary and their intention to request extradition to the US, where Gary would face a maximum sentence of ten years per count.
Suddenly six months in the UK had become sixty years in an American prison.
This was crazy. Gary hadn’t murdered anyone; he’d tapped on a keyboard from his bedroom in north London. Why would anyone want to extradite him? Surely extradition was for fugitives who had fled from another country and the scene of a heinous crime?
Gary wasn’t a fugitive, had never left the UK and had not committed a heinous crime. What was going on?
Everything was becoming more terrifyingly surreal by the second. I needed to wake up from this nightmare and find a way out; my mind was racing in search of ideas to save Gary. I also had to lose this fear that was taking hold of me. I needed to think straight. I missed my mum and was beginning to feel little in this big world, but I wasn’t little anymore and couldn’t allow myself to feel that way.
• • •
I remember dreaming in detail about my mum’s funeral before she died. In the dream, the sun was shining and my mum was smiling at me and wanted me to speak to her friends. She died one year later and my world was shattered. Despite the dream,her death was an absolute shock and I just wasn’t ready to lose her.
On the day of the funeral I watched my dream play out in front of my eyes. My brother Ian was standing in the doorway of the church, speaking to our mum’s friends as they filed outside. I’m normally shy but because in my dream my mum had wanted me to speak to her friends, I made a point of doing so, and I believe that my mum was there somewhere watching me, just as she had in my dream.
As the funeral car we were in passed Gary’s dad Charlie, without being touched the horn on the car sounded ‘peep peep’ twice, in a friendly way. The horn then peeped twice again as we passed the house Charlie, Gary and I used to live in. It was a friendly peep, the way people do when they pass someone they know. The chauffeur was very apologetic and said he couldn’t understand how the horn could have peeped twice in succession without being touched, and my sister Lorna said, ‘Don’t worry; it was our mum letting us know that she’s OK.’
The minister looked around at us as though we were crazy, which made me wonder about his beliefs. I mean, surely he believed in miracles?
• • •
It seemed ironic that I was brought up with virtually no technology and now my only child was facing the threat of extradition for a crime that would have been science fiction when I was born. There was no TV in Scotland, wireless was a radio and the internet hadn’t been dreamed of. The web was something a spider made and hacking happened to trees.
How could Gary ever have realised that tapping on a keyboard and leaving a few virtual notes – including telling the Pentagonthat their security was crap – could lead to this? Totally disproportionate sentences which would be regarded as ludicrous in the UK are all too often given in America, with no apparent sense of perspective. We were scared.
Gary and Tamsin’s relationship, which was already suffering, wasn’t helped when, after Gary’s arrest, a journalist had gone through every number in Tamsin’s aunt’s phone and rung them all – her friends, her employers and even people she barely knew – to try to get information on Gary. This was hugely upsetting and embarrassing for Tamsin’s aunt and could have cost her her job but instead cost the journalist his.
2002 was the year of the Queen’s Golden Jubilee and there seemed to be almost as many headlines about Gary as there were about the Jubilee. I had no idea then how much the media coverage was going to help us in our fight to save him. People tend to forget the good that the media often does in exposing corruption and crime and in fighting for justice and fairness. There are some damn good journalists out there.
However, the
Suddenly six months in the UK had become sixty years in an American prison.
This was crazy. Gary hadn’t murdered anyone; he’d tapped on a keyboard from his bedroom in north London. Why would anyone want to extradite him? Surely extradition was for fugitives who had fled from another country and the scene of a heinous crime?
Gary wasn’t a fugitive, had never left the UK and had not committed a heinous crime. What was going on?
Everything was becoming more terrifyingly surreal by the second. I needed to wake up from this nightmare and find a way out; my mind was racing in search of ideas to save Gary. I also had to lose this fear that was taking hold of me. I needed to think straight. I missed my mum and was beginning to feel little in this big world, but I wasn’t little anymore and couldn’t allow myself to feel that way.
• • •
I remember dreaming in detail about my mum’s funeral before she died. In the dream, the sun was shining and my mum was smiling at me and wanted me to speak to her friends. She died one year later and my world was shattered. Despite the dream,her death was an absolute shock and I just wasn’t ready to lose her.
On the day of the funeral I watched my dream play out in front of my eyes. My brother Ian was standing in the doorway of the church, speaking to our mum’s friends as they filed outside. I’m normally shy but because in my dream my mum had wanted me to speak to her friends, I made a point of doing so, and I believe that my mum was there somewhere watching me, just as she had in my dream.
As the funeral car we were in passed Gary’s dad Charlie, without being touched the horn on the car sounded ‘peep peep’ twice, in a friendly way. The horn then peeped twice again as we passed the house Charlie, Gary and I used to live in. It was a friendly peep, the way people do when they pass someone they know. The chauffeur was very apologetic and said he couldn’t understand how the horn could have peeped twice in succession without being touched, and my sister Lorna said, ‘Don’t worry; it was our mum letting us know that she’s OK.’
The minister looked around at us as though we were crazy, which made me wonder about his beliefs. I mean, surely he believed in miracles?
• • •
It seemed ironic that I was brought up with virtually no technology and now my only child was facing the threat of extradition for a crime that would have been science fiction when I was born. There was no TV in Scotland, wireless was a radio and the internet hadn’t been dreamed of. The web was something a spider made and hacking happened to trees.
How could Gary ever have realised that tapping on a keyboard and leaving a few virtual notes – including telling the Pentagonthat their security was crap – could lead to this? Totally disproportionate sentences which would be regarded as ludicrous in the UK are all too often given in America, with no apparent sense of perspective. We were scared.
Gary and Tamsin’s relationship, which was already suffering, wasn’t helped when, after Gary’s arrest, a journalist had gone through every number in Tamsin’s aunt’s phone and rung them all – her friends, her employers and even people she barely knew – to try to get information on Gary. This was hugely upsetting and embarrassing for Tamsin’s aunt and could have cost her her job but instead cost the journalist his.
2002 was the year of the Queen’s Golden Jubilee and there seemed to be almost as many headlines about Gary as there were about the Jubilee. I had no idea then how much the media coverage was going to help us in our fight to save him. People tend to forget the good that the media often does in exposing corruption and crime and in fighting for justice and fairness. There are some damn good journalists out there.
However, the
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