My blog diary of my fight against my son Richard's extradition to the US on allegations of copyright infringement for conduct which was not a crime in the UK. It transpires that extradition was sought because the US authorities were offended by Richard posting a rap video "F... tha Police" in protest at the seizure of his domain!
I thought my ranty posts were over, hoped that our government would have by now pulled their finger out and amended our rotten extradition treaty with the US, but oh no here we are again. More victims of this insidious law are getting in line at Heathrow airport. They are coming out of the woodwork so to speak. Who What Where!!
Dave McIntyre as reported in the Manchester Evening News and added to the increasing list of cases on the Friends Extradited website.
As you can see Dave is an ex army soldier having seen service in Afghanistan, Bosnia and Northern Ireland serving his own country, Britain. I'm not going to write about Dave's situation please read the press report. What's most alarming that Dave has only come to the attention of extradition campaigners at the very late stages of his extradition battle and as a consequence his situation is extremely urgent,extremely urgent.
Legal representation has today been made to the Home Secretary Theresa May to put a hold on Dave's extradition which should be proceeding within the next couple of weeks or so after he lost his High Court Appeal against extradition. Dave has Post Traumatic Stress Disorder as a result of his experiences in some of the world's war zones. Unfortunately due to poor legal advice and also since Dave felt unable to tell people what was happening to him Medical evidence about his condition was not presented to the courts. Now Dave has at this late stage managed to find expert legal assistance it is hoped that this medical evidence can now be considered and his extradition stopped. Melanie Riley at BellYard Communications and FriendsExtradited has launched a Petition to the Home Office so please if you are reading here do sign and share with friends and contacts to help Dave.
Campaigners are helping raise awareness on twitter using the hashtags #savedave #extradition. Dave is now on twitter @davemac1134 so please follow and support him he needs all the help he can get and time is running out. Other people to follow for info about Dave are @FrExtradited @Extradition_sol @Kaimtodner @_amy_mac_ @beautifultroub If any of you have friends in high places in the military or support groups please draw Dave's situation to their attention in case they can offer any help.
25th March 2013 - Breaking News!!
Home Secretary Theresa May has agreed to a delay of Dave's extradition of two weeks to allow for submissions of medical evidence by Dave's legal team,, Solicitor Michael Evans at Kaim Todner Solicitors and Ben Cooper Barrister at Doughty Street Chambers.
O’Dwyer Family Thank You We have many people to thank and wanted to ensure that no one was overlooked so this is our thank you to you all. We would like to thank our legal teams in the UK and US. Ben Cooper Barrister at Doughty Street Chambers and Chris Wong Solicitor at Howells in Sheffield who have worked tremendously hard, often very long hours over the last 18mths or so. They have put up with my copious rantings and had to sift through tons of material that I have passed on to them. We thank them for their hardwork and diligence.We are extremely grateful to Ben for accompanying us to the US, his presence was a great reassurance even though he could have had us arrested numerous times for Jay walking! JoshuaDratel Richards US lawyer who has worked extremely hard on the US side not least in negotiating the outcome which has been achieved for Richard with the least possible damage and which is I am sure the best we could have achieved in the absence of either a UK or US trial. A number of Intellectual Property Lawyers have helped Richard on a Pro Bono basis in the UK and US. Graham Smith from Bird & Bird gave his expertise to assist in preparations for the High Court Appeal in the event that it should go ahead. I first spotted Graham via twitter where I discovered he was giving talks at an Open Rights Group Conference. Graham introduced us to Andrew Bridges of Fenwick and West LLP in San Francisco and arranged for him to meet with us and the legal team in the UK. Andrew enthusiastically worked on the case and was able to assist during the negotiations. David Cook of Pannone in Manchester gave his opinion and comment as well as assisting in the early days of the case. We are grateful to the US prosecutors who allowed these negotiations to come to fruition in a way that I hope satisfies all concerned.Thanks also the Homeland Security staff at New York Newark airport who were so kind to Richard and made sure our passage through security & border control went without any hitches. David Bermingham was one of the Nat West 3 extradited to the US a few years ago. David was the first person I turned to after the extradition warrant was served on Richard. David was the first to advise that we would be unlikely to win over extradition through the courts and highly recommended that we approach the US prosecutors to negotiate a remedy outside of the courts. I’m sure David at times wondered what we were playing at and thought we should have had it sorted ages ago but there were all sorts of reasons for the delay and I never forgot his good advice- hence the outcome. So huge thanks to David as without his advice Richard may have found himself being extradited to the US. I would highly recommend that anyone finding themselves in this dreadful position should get in touch with David. http://www.dbsc.co.uk/ Melanie Riley Director of Bell Yard Communications in London was the second person I got in touch with just before attending court with Richard in June/July 2011. Petrified of facing a gathering of press and not knowing how to manage the situation, Melanie quickly responded and was on hand to help at first with simple advice and later to help with guiding us through what was to become a very regular part of court attendances. Melanie has worked tirelessly for many years helping victims of this rotten extradition Act and playing a key role helping others fighting for extradition reform. On top of this Melanie has been doing all of this for Richard and others before him for no payment! I don’t know how we would have managed without Melanie and we owe her big style! As some tiny recompense Melanie was able to harness Richard’s skills to create a website all about UK to US Extradition
Friends Extradited.org Melanie also suggested I join twitter! Since then much of my life has been on twitter- a waste of time some may think but not for me as twitter has been a huge source of support, new friends and vital information so don’t knock it! A huge debt is owed to Melanie she has been tremendous, so knowledgeable and professional. David Bermingham told me at an early stage that Melanie would be the best thing to happen to us during this fight and he was quite right! Janis Sharp mum of Gary Mckinnon, I got in touch with Janis via twitter as recommended by Melanie. What a role model! Janis is so knowledgeable about extradition due to having fought to stop Gary’s extradition. Janis has been a brilliant source of advice and support, we have met several times now. There is no better support than that from another person having the same experiences. So brilliant that Janis won the battle to keep her son Gary in the UK and can now try to get life back to normal- whatever that may be. Massive thanks to Janis. Wilson Sharp a bit of an unsung hero! I’d like to thank Wilson for his fantastic filming and video skills, he has helped us several times by putting together videos about Richard’s case. Thank you Wilson! I’d like to thank Jimmy Wales for spearheading a huge campaign of support along with BrieLowry and John Coventry and all the staff at change.org along with Ian Katz and James Ball at the Guardian who teamed up to support Richard and set up the Saverichard Campaign which over 253k people signed. Thank you so much to all of you who signed and also those who left their messages of support. Liberty the Human Rights Organisation have been behind Richard from the start and particular thanks to Bella Sankey and Shami Chakrabarti for their help and support. Fair Trials International have supported us and we are especially grateful to Jago Russell who helped to convince Richard that negotiations outside of the courts was a desirable option to pursue. Jessica Zeun and Deborah Adshead and Graham Coyne tutors at Sheffield Hallam University have been a great source of support and friendship to me and have been very active at the University raising awareness of Richard’s situation, educating his fellow students and rallying support at the University. Angela Roberts is an old nursing friend of mine Huge thanks to Angela for turning out at demonstrations and pestering all her friends to sign petitions. Angela set up the fighting fund to help with US expenses and amazingly £13k has been raised in 2 months. Hugs and thanks to Angela for doing this and a tremendous thank you to all have very kindly given most generously to the fund. I’d like to thank Alki David who so generously offered to cover legal costs for a trial in the US, as it happened we had pro bono assistance and didn’t have a trial but Alki’s very generous offer was greatly reassuring. A number of MP’s have been very supportive both in Richard’s case and in the fight for extradition reform. Dominic Raab, Tim Farron, Keith Vaz, CarolineLucas, David Burrowes, Sir Menzies Campbell, Zac Goldsmith and others who I know have on occasion raised Richard’s name in Parliament as has Lord McGuinness so I would like to thank them here for their support, efforts and assure them that I will continue with those others fighting for extradition reform. I would like to thank those groups and individuals campaigning for digital and online freedom and legislation which is fit for today’s digital age and who have in a number of ways have tried to help us such as, Open Rights Group, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Pirate Party UK, and James Firth. Last of all but certainly not least I must thank the many many people on twitter who have supported in many different ways for example, blogging about Richard’s plight, making amazing videos to raise awareness of the campaign, sending over copyright case information most of which was forwarded to the lawyers, sending messages of support, writing to MP’s and the Home Office and all the RT ‘s etc. There are too many to mention you know who you are! I have been very fortunate to meet a few of you especially from the #Freegary team! Huge thanks to you all and I do hope no one has been overlooked. You have all helped in so many ways and all of it has been very much appreciated. Without your support I don’t know how we would have survived this ordeal, we are greatly indebted to you. Thank you Julia & Richard O’Dwyer
Well Wow! What can I say- Angela's fighting fund for Richard has exceeded all expectations over the last 48hours or so. Things really started to take off after Torrentfreak Published an article and at the same time ThePirateBay placed a doodle linking to the donation site on their home page. Twitter helped spread the word as usual!
Angela and I are trying to thank all donors individually as well as responding to comments and good wishes. Its not very easy to do this without missing people or sending a thank you twice to the same person! Anyway we are doing our best. I know people on twitter have donated and its not alway possible to recognise and connect these with people following me on twitter so a MASSIVE THANK YOU to all from twitter who have given and sent their messages of support, such a brilliant crowd whose support online has given me strength and helped keep me going over these last 18 months.
Up to now 889 people from all over the world have donated £10,409! So much kindness and generosity from people really has been tremendous along with the great supportive comments. If this continues Angela should be sure to reach her goal of £25,000.
Just for info payment via the Gofundme site is via credit or debit card payment. Due to having a small number of people ask about alternative ways to donate people can also donate using Flattr and there is now a Flattr button on this blog. (This is new to me so I'm not sure how it works!) If people want to donate using other methods I'm sure that can be arranged so either contact me @jrodwyer or Angela @angelaroberts2 via twitter or leave a comment on here or on the Gofundme site and one of us will get back to you.
Someone has asked about Facebook verification of the Gofundme fighting fund the reason this hasn't happened is because Angela (who launched this fund) does not have a Facebook account - her dog does tho!Therefore you will not see it Facebook verified but I can assure everyone that monies raised will be used for its intended purpose as stated on this earlier post
Depending on the outcome for Richard if there are any funds not used we will ensure these are donated to worthy causes fighting against unjust extraditions and for extradition reform e.g Fair Trials International and Liberty
Since Richard was served with a US extradition warrant on 23rd May 2011, our lives have been consumed with the need to fight against this outrage, this utter neglect of successive British governments to give UK citizens protections equal to those afforded US citizens and against the terrifying but highly possible scenario of Richard being extradited to the US.
The British public over this year have seen a steady stream of UK citizens who have never even set foot in the US being extradited and immediately placed into the Federal Prison system! Christopher Tappin, Babar Ahmad and Talha Ahsan this year and a significant number before them such as the NatWest3 and Ian Norris.
Of note is the fact that not one American has been extradited to the UK for an alleged crime committed whilst in the US during this time or in fact at any other time since the current extradition law was enacted in January 2004. In fact the UK has never even requested such an extradition of a US Citizen
The extradition process is from start to finish an additional punishment itself, meted out before any trial or opportunity to prove ones innocence. No presumption of innocence before proven guilty whatever the alleged crime. Extradition destroys families, relationships, employment and is very costly even with legal aid and that is before the victims get to the US.
In the US there is no comparable legal aid system and legal costs can run into millions of dollars and drag on for years even more unsavoury is the fact that after an extradition, victims are often forced to wait many months or even years often in prison, for the US authorities to be ready for a trial. Over the last 18 months several people have offered to pay any legal costs in the US or to take Richard's case on a pro bono basis. For these kind and generous offers we are extremely grateful and reassured.
There still remains the worry of financial costs in the US, obviously there will be personal financial costs associated with travel to the US, accommodation and the cost of securing an address for Richard to live at in order to be allowed bail. These costs will have to be covered by me somehow. What concerns me are the unknown additional costs which we could be faced with such as a large bail bond or an even more costly financial penalty running into hundreds of thousands of dollars if Richard were to be found guilty
I have until now not considered a fighting fund to be necessary and a number of supporters have made the suggestion, however in reality we must face up to the fact that Richard is likely be extradited without too much notice and hence need to plan ahead. An old nursing friend of mine Angela Roberts has this week launched a Fighting Fund for Richard with a target of £25,000. I am extremely grateful to Angela for doing this, she has been a terrific supporter in many ways.
This is a large amount to be raised and I know times are hard for many of us so with that in mind please donate only if you can afford to do so. Your online and public support has been invaluable and has helped get us through this dreadful situation.
Nearly a quarter of a million people have signed the petition started by Jimmy Wales and Change.org - if just a fraction of these donated a small amount the fighting fund the target would be achieved. So please if you can spare something please take the time toDonate.
All donations no matter how small will be appreciated.
David Burrowes MPgave a tremendous speech to Parliamentprior to the recess for the Conservative Party Conference which served as a stark reminder to ministers within the coalition government of their pre election promises and public statements regarding the proposed extradition of Gary Mckinnon. He was supported by Kate Hoey and also Keith Vaz
Video by Wilson Sharp as always, thank you Wilson - watch below.
Earlier this year in May Emmanuel and Patrick from Off The Hook a New York Radio Show visited me while visiting the UK. Link to that interview if you have time to listen in from about 16.00. Offthehook
Many thanks to all at www.2600.com for allowing me so much airtime to raise awareness in New York.
This video appeared recently, whilst humourous it clearly illustrates the stark reality of the US pursuit of Richard (and others) by the MPAA funded and lobbied US Department of Justice. It also makes abundantly clear the disproportionate use of extradition in dealing with various degrees of copyright allegations. (Credits to follow once identified but thanks anyway!)
