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May 17, 2010 - Project Camelot
40:41
Project Camelot: An interview with Janis Sharp: Free Gary McKinnon
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We'll be right back.
Hi, this is Carrie Cassidy from Project Hamlet.
And I'm here with Janice Sharp, who is Gary McKinnon's mother.
And we are just doing an update because we interviewed Gary a couple years ago now, which was really a wonderful experience.
And we are very interested.
We happen to come to England.
We're very interested in hearing what the status is on Gary's case.
And who better than Janice to tell us exactly what is going on with Gary Well basically the last judgement we got was against Gary and they said he should be extradited but since then we've appealed and we won the right to have a judicial review and they were actually trying to extradite Gary prior to Christmas and normally you have three months to apply for a judicial review but the government actually,
our British government gave us seven days and when Gary's solicitor appealed They extended it to 14 days, and that wasn't very good.
They also told her she had to expedite it.
The guy says to her, Karen Todner is brilliant, she's very feisty.
Karen Todner, she's very feisty, she's not afraid, and she said, well, no, no one can tell me to expedite my client's case.
Because basically it seemed very clear that our government wanted Gary away before Christmas.
Basically before the election started because it's been making them quite unpopular because so many support Gary, so many people.
So what happened, we applied for the judicial review and a very hard-line judge who's not known as being a liberal And he has actually given us the judicial review, which is amazing.
And he also gave us 41 days to put in the evidence.
And he's given us more time to do other things.
And also, it's very rare for a judge of that level to actually come out and say very much.
And he actually says that if all that has been said and the medical reports from Gary are true, that it's basically illegal for the decision to extradite Gary.
So that's given us a lot of hope.
And also, in the meantime, it gives us...
More time to put forward more points, basically.
So we're incredibly pleased.
And I feel we've reached 2010, and I feel much more optimistic about 2010, and I'm so glad to have 2009 gone.
So what you're saying is that during Christmas time there seemed to be a push to get Gary basically extradited.
Absolutely there was, and I'm sure it was because it was embarrassing for them to have Gary around, Whilst an election was coming up, because so many people have written to them about Gary.
I also wrote to the Queen and she wrote, she said, lots and lots and lots of letters for Gary.
So there's been such a big thing.
Even the Prime Minister, her wife actually invited me to tea.
On the one hand, the government's actually trying to extrovert Gary.
But the Prime Minister's wife was actually sympathetic.
So there's such a push that they didn't want, I think...
Lots of people have written to me and said they've cancelled their membership of the Labour Party, which is the government that's in power.
Many people have said we'll never vote for them again because of what they've done to Gary.
So I think the idea was get them out of the way, put them out of everyone's minds, and then we can run this election.
But what's happened now is great for us, but has also worked for them in a sense, because...
Basically, nothing will be happening to Gary until practically on the election, really.
I mean, if it's after the election, that would be good for them, but if it's just prior to it, that would be interesting.
Okay, so when is the election exactly?
The latest they can have it is May, but I'm not sure.
here they keep it secret until the last minute because they want to have an advantage over the other parties so the 6th of May is when everyone thinks it will be but in actual fact they could spring on us in a couple of weeks so nobody really knows you've never stopped working for Gary and you've gotten a lot of music personalities and show business people behind the effort as well as I guess socially aware artists and perhaps others
Yeah, yeah.
Can you name some of the personalities that you've worked with?
Well, initially, actually, Sting came out for Gary.
That wasn't my doing.
He actually, suddenly I read in the papers and he said it was awful and he should not be extradited.
And he and his wife, Trudy Styler, and they both have worked very hard and have really spoken out well for Gary, but they were upset about it.
And afterwards, there was quite a big movement from people, UFO people, musicians, people with asparagus, parents of children with autism.
There's so many different groups of people that were for Gary that I felt it needed that bigger push because the government had to listen.
I actually thought our government signed an extradition treaty with America which means that any British citizen can be extradited with no evidence whatsoever.
Whereas if we want to extradite an American we have to provide probable cause and that's actually evidence which an American can contest in court and this gives them a safeguard.
We don't have a safeguard.
The Constitution in America protects them.
We don't have any protection.
And our government has basically thrown us to the dogs.
And the reason is, it seems so desperate to ingratiate itself with the big boys, with America.
And it was almost done to please.
And it's been so bad for so many different families in the UK and so many people.
We were told that this treaty was used for terrorists and so far it's been used for anyone but.
And people who are suspected of really heinous crimes, nothing's happening to them.
You know, they go to the European Court of Rights and they, you know, are given as a favour and they will consider their cases.
But the people who are totally non-violent and absolutely nothing to do with terrorism They're the ones that are suffering.
Guy's been told he would get 10 years per count, 60 years, if he didn't accept the prior plea bargain.
And also his solicitor was told in the American Embassy one state wanted to see him pry.
For what?
For sitting on a keyboard?
A dial-up connection looking for evidence and suppressed information of UFOs and free energy?
I mean, why on earth would you want to give someone like that, who was in a 28k, really old-fashioned computer eight years ago, eight or nine years ago, why would you want to do that to someone?
It's ludicrous.
The whole thing is so out of proportion, you think, why?
What is actually going on here?
But anyway, I felt it needed this bigger push, and I thought, how can I do this?
And because we're musicians, and I've always felt that a lot of musicians will stand up for justice, and they will speak out, They're not afraid.
The government listens to them because governments are very celebrity conscious.
When they have elections, they have celebrities on board.
So, basically, I knew David Gilmore's brother, brother-in-law, sorry, from Muzzle Hill.
And I got in touch with Joe.
He knew Gary when Gary was younger.
And he didn't even realise it was Gary.
He was actually shocked.
He knew all about the case.
He says, God, I never realised it was Gary.
And he got on to David and I had already written letters to David and David was amazing.
Wilson, Gary's stepdad, did the backing track to the song Chicago.
I asked Graham Nash if I could change the lyrics.
Chicago was a song that was done about the Chicago 8 in the 60s when a time of great injustice was going on.
And that was what Graham Nash had written the song about.
And I thought it was an ideal sort of protest song for real justice.
So I asked him could I change the lyrics and he said yes, which was amazing.
So what I changed it to was a direct appeal to Obama.
So it was basically...
Would he please come from Chicago, stand up in London for our lives?
Because I thought, I look at Obama and I think he's a good guy.
I know people who have complete opinions about this.
I know all about the Obama conspiracy theory.
I look at Obama and his wife and I see good people and I still believe that.
But I thought to make him hear about it, I need people who are I've got the stature to be able to get through to him.
So David Gilmour was going on holiday with his family that night.
Wilson emailed him the backing track and he put on his vocal there and then before he left, which was incredible because he was really, really busy and he did this before he left.
After that I got in touch with Bob Geldof's people, Sir Bob Geldof, and it was difficult, it was more difficult to get through to Bob Geldof, funnily enough, and eventually I did and he also Put his vocal on the track.
And from there, David knows Chrissy Hynde quite well.
She's American from The Pretenders.
And she agreed to do it.
And that was just amazing.
And also they had said, yeah, they'll do the song, but they wouldn't do interviews.
But they did.
The whole thing, they actually took us down to Rack Studios, which is a big studio in London.
They had Gary sing on the track.
Gary's a really good musician, but he was very nervous.
He's been under so much stress, and mentally it's done so much harm to him.
And he's changed so much that instead of being himself or singing naturally he was very afraid, he stood very quiet and I felt so sad for him because under normal circumstances Gary would have been so natural but he was very afraid.
But he sang and his voice is lovely as always and when Chrissie Hynde walked in she had A t-shirt with Animal Liberation and I thought, yeah, because we're vegetarians and a similar outlook and I thought, good on her.
Well, they actually broadcast it on television and David Gilmore spoke up for Gary.
He did an interview.
Chrissie Hines spoke up amazingly for Gary.
She likened it to factory farming, leaving somebody sitting around for eight years not knowing whether they're going to be extradited.
And she actually said, I think it's going to work out.
She said, but this is just what we have to do to get to where we have to be, which was quite an uplifting thing for me to hear.
So that was really nice.
So basically, that was it.
It was to get the song to Obama's ears.
Whether it has or not, I don't know.
But I do know that Hillary Clinton knows all about Gary.
I know that the American ambassador, because he's written in a newspaper, and basically they are still determined to take Gary.
And they feel that he should be extradited.
Well, in America it's different, because it's all states.
So you're more used to extradition from one state to another.
This is an island...
And to be dragged from the island you were born in is not natural or normal.
It's against everything that's wrong.
It just is so wrong.
And also extradition was meant, if you've committed a crime abroad and you flee, it was meant to take you back to the country where you've committed the crime.
Carrie's never been there.
It wasn't meant to take you from your own country.
And also, up until now, extradition has been for murder and horrendous crimes.
It's now been used for all sorts of what we regard as low-level crimes.
There's also a different mindset.
In Britain, we don't take computer crime that seriously.
And there's a sense of humour about it.
And a lot of people who have hacked end up actually running security companies.
Sure.
In America, it's looked on as much more serious, and I think because of all the kind of things that have been happening in the world, there's a kind of paranoia, and I think that they're very determined to make an example of Gary.
But what happened was Gary admitted to computer misuse.
This, to me, was his mistake without a lawyer being present.
He was arrested by the high-tech crime unit, the British high-tech crime unit, and he was told that he'd probably get six months community service.
He was mislead.
I think it was genuine.
They actually even said to him they would like someone like Gary to work for them.
And Gary got on with them.
Well, he says, those are computer people.
They're really nice.
Gary's very naive.
Since then, we've found out there's so many things about Gary I could tell you about his childhood, how different he was, how he was.
And actually, it relates to asparagus.
People with asparagus are intelligent.
That's a criteria for it.
They are often very articulate, which Gary is very articulate.
And Gary, since he's two years old, used to talk about the stars and space, which is pretty amazing for a two-year-old.
And he could read when he was three.
So when we actually saw the professor, Professor Simon Baron Cohen, I said, well, no, Gary can't have Asperger's because...
He could talk when he was ten months.
He could read when he was three.
He would talk about stars when he was two.
He says, no, that's Asperger's.
He says, Asperger's high-functioning autism, they come on very fast.
He says, but what it's like is it's like living in a country where you speak a different language.
He said, people with asparagus can't read facial expressions.
Gary used to, when he was younger, he bought a book and he was obsessed with learning body language.
I thought, it's all this about body language, you know.
But I realise now it's because he didn't understand body language.
He also told us a long time ago he had difficulty knowing how to fit in with different people, so he would tend to be what they wanted with each person he was with.
And it's because he didn't know quite how to react.
Also, Gary has never been the tiniest bit racist, but apparently people with his burgers don't say race.
They say people.
They also generally, this is very weird, have monotone voice.
Gary has a monotone voice, a beautiful voice.
And also, they don't...
The facial movements aren't as expressive.
It's all day calm.
There's so many things.
When Guy was a child, he used to scream if we were on buses.
And I didn't understand why he's screaming on buses.
His friends all travel abroad.
Guy never does.
He doesn't leave North London.
He wants to be at home.
And I realise now all these things are part of it.
It's a completely different way of seeing.
But there's a professor, Atwood, who's English and he lives in Australia.
And he's written lots of books that lots of people with Asperger's relate more to computers than to people.
And although he can relate very well, they actually relate very well to computers.
And Gary's obsession, as you know, because you've spoken to him, he felt he was in a moral crusade.
He felt if he could...
Exposed the cover-up there was of free energy, that this could solve the world's energy crisis.
Old people wouldn't die of cold, you wouldn't have the problems of climate change.
He genuinely believes that this evidence is suppressed.
And actually right now he's working on a thing with magnets, trying to create his own thing.
And his stepdad Wilson also got into this and together they were working on a thing.
Where, because they've looked at it since then, because you can actually find quite a lot of information on the internet about creating your own energy.
He also was searching for, he believes that anti-gravity is being suppressed and information on UFOs and aliens.
So he actually felt he was a...
But the mistake Gary made, apart from he shouldn't have done that, I mean, to go into the Pentagon, how silly is that?
It's just crazy.
Right.
And Gary said, well, there was no passwords and no firewalls and thousands of machines, and he couldn't believe this.
He couldn't believe his luck, to be honest, because he could find out all this information.
But then he started to worry, why are there no passwords and no firewalls?
So he was concerned...
I'm floating around here, but we were at home and we watched 9-11 on the television.
Gary was in our house at the time.
And we cried.
We just absolutely cried.
We couldn't believe it.
And we couldn't understand.
The people were hanging out the windows.
No helicopters were going up.
Nobody was going to save the people.
And we couldn't get this because that always happens.
They always go on the roofs.
They always go up there.
And what Gary said is he had left a message, which was really stupid, a cyber message saying that he believed it was no accident, it was a stand-down after 9-11 and that they were guilty of state-sponsored terrorism, the American government.
The reason he explained to Professor Simon Baron Cohen that he believed this was, he said there's a protocol in America that if a plane flies off course for even a few minutes, The fighter jets are sent up, they monitor the pilots, they monitor the people, the travellers.
It was off course for more than an hour and a half, and one flying towards the Pentagon, nothing went up.
So Gaddy was desperately, he was a whistleblower, he was desperately trying to bring to their attention what was happening.
He left notes saying, look, there's no security, there's no security.
And he couldn't understand why no one was doing anything.
He was shocked and he kept saying, you know, security's crap, you know, what's happening here?
Yeah, so he was, you know, sort of a crusader, basically, for...
For causes that he believed in at the time.
Absolutely.
And he was also young, he was naive, and he was smoking dope at the same time, right?
He was, yeah.
He actually was in a relationship, and as I said, Gary is very young for his age and ways, although he's very intelligent, and he's Very articulate, but he's always been immature for his age.
And one time he got upset, I said that, and he says, his dad from Scotland was down, he says, I'm not immature for my age, I'm a dad.
And he says, I'm afraid you are, son.
But he is...
And so he felt he was in this moral crusade.
Sorry, tell me what you said again.
No problem.
And he was how old when he originally did this so-called crime?
Yeah, I think he was about 35.
I think he was then.
But his girlfriend at 33 had wanted a baby.
And Gary came up to us and says, how could I be responsible for a baby?
We said, well, you're 35.
He said, but how could I be responsible?
And he loves kids, but he just couldn't think how he could be responsible.
And also, there was lots of demands placed in him, and his girlfriend, Hansen, wanted him to have a proper job, a steady job, different things.
Gary tended to not be able to keep a job, because if there was ever any pressure, he would leave.
Rather than confront it, he would leave.
And the same in the relationship, he felt, well, I really love you.
What more do I have to do?
He genuinely didn't get it.
And Tamsin came from a more conventional family.
Her grandfather was a doctor and so on.
And she felt there was a problem.
She wanted him to go and see someone about it.
But he felt very insulted by this because he didn't know what was wrong.
And at one Christmas we were over there and all her family were there.
It was a big party.
People had come from all over.
And Gary's sitting there with a computer on top of the table.
And we said, well, you can't do this.
He said, well, why?
We said, because everyone's here at the party.
You can't sit there with this huge computer on the table.
He said, but it's my party too.
So a lot of Gary is intelligent.
There's lots of things.
He's naive.
I've always said Gary's an innocent.
He is.
He's an innocent.
And it was very strange because there was a show that's quite well-known over here called the Jeremy Vine Show on radio.
And one of the first callers of a girlfriend Gary had had when he was 16, Rachel, and she came on and she said that her heart breaks for Gary, because Gary's always been naive, she says he's always been vulnerable, her heart absolutely breaks for him, his obsession was always UFOs, it was what he did, but she was so upset by it.
So even she, a 16-year-old girl, 15 I think she was, saw the vulnerability of Gary, you know, even then.
I understand.
What is it that actually, you know, do you think stimulated Gary to get on this whole UFO story?
Do you think that he had, for example, abduction experiences when he was very, very young?
Have you had any exposure to that?
No, when he was very young, he was always fascinated by the stars, the planets.
He would ask me questions that I couldn't answer.
He's always had a fascination.
His stepdad Wilson was always into science fiction, and he lived at Bonnybridge, which is one of the biggest sightings for UFOs in the world, and Gary was quite obsessed with that.
Gary knows about astral projection, and I'm going to turn off the wall here, but I mean, When I was younger, these things happened to me without me trying, and I was very scared of it, because I didn't know what was happening to me.
I had never heard of it before, and it wasn't actually until I met Wilson that he explained to me.
It was an involuntary thing, and I eventually stopped it happening, because to me, it's scary.
Even though, logically, I don't think anything's going to happen, but instinctively, it scares me.
Gary actually tried it.
He was interested in doing it, whereas me, I'm thinking, stop it, please.
But Gary actually, I think it's happened to him once.
But I don't think it was just that.
Gary has had the fascination first.
I mean, how many two-year-olds talk about the stars and the planets and ask all these sort of incredible questions at two years old?
I think that's pretty amazing.
So somehow, you're born with certain, I don't know...
I came from a father who was a crofter who farmed animals.
I'm vegetarian and couldn't kill a fly.
It's nothing to do with my family, nothing to do with my upbringing.
It's something that's in you.
For some reason, Gary's always had an incredible fascination for what's happening out there.
It's something that he has.
With Wilson, that inspired him even more.
And Wilson was his stepfather, you say?
Since he was five, yeah.
Since he was five?
Yeah, and that's actually added to it because he was fascinated by all those stories and so on.
So he had that influence in a parent, is what you're saying?
Yeah.
Okay, very interesting.
So to get back to the actual case and where we're at with the case...
What is exactly where you are at now?
In other words, you say you have 41 days.
Yeah.
And when did that 41 days start?
When it ends, the 17th.
The evidence got to be in by the 17th of this month.
Okay, of February.
Yeah.
Fabulous.
Okay.
Now, has that been enough time?
For Karen Todner, I don't know, do you call her the solicitor?
She's the solicitor, and then you have the barrister, who's Ben Cooper.
He's young, and Ben is amazing.
I mean, one minute past twelve on New Year's Eve, he was working in Gary's case.
Karen also, she's on holiday, and she'll deal with Gary's case.
They're amazing.
They love Gary.
When we get the first good news in the court, Karen cried how many solicitors tried.
His QC is Edward Fitzgerald, that's Queen's Council.
I mean, that's one of the best QCs, the best barristers there are if you're at Queen's Council, and he's a really well-known human rights lawyer all over the world.
He works.
I see.
Okay.
And so, do you feel that this 41 days has been enough time to prepare?
It's an appeal, in essence, isn't it?
Yes, it's an appeal against the Home Secretary's decision to extradite Gary.
It's basically saying that he was wrong.
He didn't take account of all the different aspects of the evidence he was given.
The thing is, our government signed a treaty with America, and we can't give any evidence.
Gary couldn't even, if he was in a different place, a different country, couldn't even say, well, I was in France at the time.
You can't give any evidence in your favour, so the only thing you can fight on is human rights.
That's the only thing.
That you have a chance to not be extradited and that's wrong for a start.
Okay, but wasn't...
didn't he also apply to the world...
I think it's called the World Court?
The European Court of Foreign Rights.
Yes, and what happened with that part of the case?
It went in one night and in the morning they said no.
Whereas people who...
there was a man called Abu Hamza who is implicated in the deaths of American and British people in Yemen And they said, yes, we'll hear yours.
And there you go.
So there's obviously a political angle to a lot of what's going on in Gary's case.
It's not just the nuts and bolts of the case, but there's politics around and outside of it that are going on behind the scenes between the various power players, I imagine.
Huge politics.
I mean, the one thing that don't want to lose is this treaty.
They're terrified of losing this treaty.
But why on earth would a government, we vote a government in to uphold and protect our rights?
That's what we're there for.
Why on earth would they sell us out, give away our rights?
And as your friend was just saying to me that our government is known for compassion and it's got a long history of showing compassion.
I mean even when there was recently a British drugs dealer in China who was mentally ill and the Chinese were going to execute him and our Prime Minister appealed directly I think he went there and asked for him not to be executed, which is brilliant.
I've got no problem with that.
I don't think he should be executed either.
But why would he stand up for him?
But he won't even speak to the American government about Gary.
And when you had the NatWest three bankers who were extradited to America, to do with Enron and so on, Tony Blair stood up and he insisted that they be given bail.
He insisted that They would immediately be repatriated and brought back here, as soon as possible afterwards.
All of this was done, but no one will even speak to anyone in the American government about Gary.
And everyone is so determined to extradite.
And I don't understand it.
How I see it is that they're looking for an example for computer crime.
Gary admitted to computer misuse without a lawyer and they've basically thought, soft touch, he'll do.
And that's what's happened.
When they arrested Gary in 2002 in March, had they requested the extradition, they would have to have provided evidence because then we had to have a prima facie case.
But what happened was America waited For three years before requesting the extradition because by then we were using the treaty which meant that America could extradite by providing no evidence whatsoever.
So our government was wrong for basically removing our rights totally and the American government to me is wrong because They're using it in a way it shouldn't be used.
It was meant to be, we were told, for terrorists, and it's been used against people who are non-violent.
Guy hasn't murdered anyone, he hasn't raped anyone, he hasn't done some horrendous thing.
Plus, it will not stop kids doing this.
I know Guy's not a child, but as I say, Guy's very young for his age, he has his burgers.
But if you've got a child, Human nature is we explore, this is what we do, and if you've got a child or an adult with that sense of being driven by what's happening in our universe, and they have a computer in the corner, Are they going to say, oh dear me, something like that?
They're not going to think about it.
They're going to go in there and they're going to travel in cyberspace to find it all they can.
And in a sense, they're testing the security by being non-paid.
They're not being paid.
They're testing security.
And if the security is bad, they can actually...
Up it and make it better.
But it's like saying, well, we don't want to arrest burglars.
What we want is we want to...
Yeah, leave everybody's doors open.
Make an example of one.
Give them 60 years and then you won't have to lock your doors at night.
It's silly.
It's completely silly.
And that's a very good analogy.
I agree with that.
So basically, where is Gary at in terms of...
This has been eight years...
Yeah, it's been eight years.
Eight years in March coming.
I understand.
And you've been working basically night and day on the place, it seems.
And he's become kind of a cause celeb, I think you might call it, in this country at least.
You haven't had all that much publicity in the United States.
No, but we were offered it.
They wanted us to do 60 Minutes and a lot of people, CBS, wanted to do it and we said, no, I didn't want to put my head in America because I felt, you'll understand this, I feel if you put yourself somewhere, you draw yourself there.
And if you start putting your head in America too much, you pull yourself there.
It's like if someone, as they say, wants, I think I heard it in your show actually, wants to go to And Taiwan, and they'll meet somebody in the train with a brochure for Taiwan, and it all becomes, it actually makes it...
So you create your own reality, is what you're saying.
Yeah, and I felt if you put your head in America too much, you'll pull yourself towards America.
But funnily enough, I did do Coast to Coast a couple of weeks ago, because it was a really nice woman, and she set it up, and she loves animals, I love animals, and I just thought she's a good person.
Okay.
Also, I thought that the American people would be really angry and not like Gary and he'd be seen as an enemy of the state.
And lots of people phoned in on that show and they were lovely.
They were so caring about Gary.
I have to say that I don't think that Americans would find Gary to be an enemy of the state.
But, you know, I also feel that our own interview showed his personality.
Absolutely, it was incredible.
And he's clearly a peaceful, loving individual.
And so I think it's wonderful that you are standing beside him in this battle, so to speak.
And I think it is unfortunate that he's been made an example of and The waiting of the three years, I think, is very questionable in terms of prosecuting him.
In other words, what happened originally was he was basically found out, and then they waited until the law suited them to move on it.
That's it, exactly.
That's what happened.
And a lot of the callers who called in on the Coast Coast show, they were very sympathetic to that, and they thought it was awful, and they were just so nice.
Well, and it's also, I mean, the fact of the matter is, is he was doing this at a time when His tools, using a dial-up modem, etc., were so primitive.
And actually the whole idea of cybercrime at that point was just at the very beginning of anything that one could even call a crime.
There's also the aspect of his case which talks about damages.
And it seems so absurd, knowing what I know about computers, that he created anything that would be worth money in terms of damages.
Can you talk about that a little bit?
Because that's one of the most, in my view, one of the most bogus accusations that they're making, that he actually could damage, for example, Pentagon or behind the scenes in NASA. I mean, the idea that a guy with a dial-up modem, even being as intrepid as he is and brilliant as he is, would be able to cause any kind of so-called damage.
Because you're talking about cyberspace, and you're talking about the government.
And so, I mean, it just boggles the mind.
I don't think it's possible that a young man of his age and abilities and using the technical tools that he had at the time could have done any damage.
Yeah, well, that's it.
Without the damage, it wasn't extraditable.
It wasn't an extraditable event.
So what happened was, to be able to extradite, it had to be $5,000 of damage in each machine.
And what happened was, the prosecutors claimed there was $5,000 of damage in each machine.
And they also said the same about the six universities Gary had gone into.
And what happened is, because they endowed Gary and arrested Gary in 2002, but didn't apply for extradition, and the universities came forward and said no he didn't do any damage so they put out a superseding indictment but all they did was withdraw the alleged damages to the universities and Gary has always denied any damage but what happened was at the last court hearing I got a professor of computing who works for the police here quite often so I thought that was the best one to get and
he said the damage was basically for security they should have installed in the first place Gary didn't shut their machines down.
They shut the machines down when they knew someone was on them.
And when they knew someone was on was when a person in the university had informed them.
And it wasn't immediately after 9-11.
This is bogus.
It was months after.
It wasn't immediately after.
But he's always denied the damage.
And this professor said that the damage is...
And funnily enough, on that interview, of course, someone said, oh, God, the next ad coming up costs more than $800,000.
He said, so cheap at the price.
That's what they actually said.
Exactly.
Well, again, I have to say that the damage claims are absurd.
And in also looking back, because that's what we're doing here, we're having him be tried for something that he did in the past, which, in essence, there was no security, no obvious security.
And one would wonder what exactly was really going on there.
This is why we were very interested in the aspect of what he found, because it seems to us it's more about what he actually found than what he did.
And when I say what he found, what I'm talking about is evidence of non-terrestrial officer lists, of off-world exploration and that sort of thing.
In essence, what we call the secret space program.
It would be evidence for the existence of the secret space program and that this is the real crux of the matter and why Gary is being tried and sort of pursued the way he is.
What's interesting about it is because of the way you and Gary have pursued the situation and defended the situation and obviously your solicitor and so on, you have Have basically drawn more attention to the case than maybe was originally felt would happen.
And so I think that you've done a good thing because there has been more attention drawn to this kind of a thing, to the pursuit of finding evidence for UFOs, finding evidence for off-world exploration and a secret space program and so on.
I am curious whether or not Gary had any sort of training in terms of astronomy?
No, he didn't, but he was always interested in it.
I mean, he didn't have...
But he didn't have any obvious schooling or, you know, science background?
No, no, not at all.
I mean, Gary got 1.0 level at school because he would often get bored with things.
But no, he didn't at all.
On the contrary, a lot of people think it's because of what he knows I actually think it's because they've escalated it so much that they feel that they have to do something and I think if Gary was extradited I'd never see him again because I think they've blown it up out of all proportion so they would have to make him look really bad and our home secretary actually came out and says well Gary McKinnon's accused of doing this doing this doing this well if he's accused that doesn't mean to say he's done it and he said 350 people died after But
the fact that our Home Secretary is saying this, what the heck would happen to Gary if he went over there?
He wouldn't have a hope.
Because both our governments seem very determined to do something.
And it's ludicrous.
It's gotten so out of proportion.
There was a young guy called Darren Caffrey, and he was accused of hacking into Port Houston immediately after 9-11.
And he actually brought all the chips to a halt.
And he was, the same solicitor who was in the CPS, which is the Crown Prosecution Service, was in head of his case, and he got tried in the Celtic Crown Court.
A high-tech training unit was going to try Gary here, and this Russell Tyner, who was the solicitor who was in charge of the case of both cases, said he was told from the very top to stand aside because America wanted Gary.
This shouldn't even be allowed.
And also, one thing in America, the American government stands up for Americans.
They always do, and I really admire them for that.
They stand up for their own.
Our government doesn't stand up for their own.
They're so busy trying to please...
I mean, there was recently this Chilcot inquiry about the Iraq and all that over here and about how the war was illegal.
And there was one of the former politicians called Claire Short was talking about it.
And when she was talking, she had a very senior position, and when she was talking about it, she gave you an amazing insight into the workings of parliament.
And she said that when American politicians, high-level politicians, ask our government to do anything, they say, oh, we've been asked to do this, we've been asked to do this.
And they're so keen and so excited because they want to please the big boys.
That's embarrassing.
As a British person, I think that's highly embarrassing.
Okay.
Yes, and I agree with you.
Yeah, every American person would want us to have equality.
America, they said...
We got as close to equality as we could because your constitution protects and you have probable cause.
What's to stop our government tomorrow saying that we demand probable cause?
Nothing.
Right.
It's a very interesting balance or imbalance of power in that regard.
And certainly one would assume that the rights should be balanced.
In other words, if one country wants to extradite, they should show probable cause.
And the same with the other country.
There shouldn't be a double standard in that sense.
Absolutely.
And also, ACLU, they came out in favor of Gary.
And they've said that it was wrong and they're against the treaty.
And in the case that's coming up for Gary Liberty, which is the British equivalent, the sister organisation of ACLU, they are actually intervening in Gary's case.
And they're actually going to represent Gary.
But I thought it was amazing because we did a protest outside the American embassy and Liberty was there.
And they had all made all big airplanes, paper airplanes saying, keep Gary here.
And had all the thing about the extradition.
And the ACLU backed Gary.
I thought that was fantastic.
Yes, it was wonderful to hear.
It was very good.
Now, I have to say that in America, and I think it's very good that we're doing this interview, because in America, there are people out there who actually think that you have some kind of ulterior motive.
that you might have a background in British intelligence or some craziness.
And here we have you on camera, and we're able to sort of see, you know, in essence, you're kind of like an Earth Mother, you know, not at all the sort of persona that they're talking about.
I think that's funny.
And I don't know if you've heard anything.
No, I'm not.
It's funny.
Okay, well, and it always amazed me, but that's what people come up with, you know.
Their minds go wild, and they...
They're always looking for ulterior motives and all of this sort of thing.
So it's lovely to have you here.
And I want to thank you very much, Janice.
Thank you.
And thank you for your service to humanity.
I don't know if you realize it, but you are doing the counseling for humanity.
Oh, my God.
We'll save you.
We'll save you there.
Bye.
You can rest the world.
We can't shine.
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