by Sharp, Janis
When a sentence of six months in the UK can become a sentence of sixty years in the US, it is patently clear that our justice systems bear scant resemblance.
Duncan Campbell wrote in The Guardian after the hearing in the Lords in 2008:
‘The difference between the American system and our own is not perhaps so stark as the appellant’s argument suggests,’ said Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood in his ruling.
… Well, who knows what news gets through to Eaton-under-Heywood these days, but if Lord Brown and his four colleagues had done some cursory research on the current state of the US criminal justice system they would know there is a very stark difference between the way [Gary] could be treated by the US courts and how he would be treated here.
There may be much wrong with the British criminal justice system but, compared to the lottery that is the American judicial process, there are a number of sober differences. For a start, here you would not find yourself in jail for fifty years for stealing $160 worth of video tapes, or for twenty-five years for smoking marijuana. Nor does the UK operate a Guantanamo Bay where the most basic legal principles have been abandoned as part of a post-9/11 panic. And there is no guarantee that, if tried in the US, McKinnon would not be confronted by some grandstanding, publicity-seeking judge deeply offended that a chap in a flat in north London can leave a message saying ‘your security is really crap’ on the Pentagon computer, as McKinnon did. After all, one American official in this case has already said that he would like to see him ‘fry’.
In the beginning we had such faith in the British judicial system. OK, the American system allows plea bargains, where convicted people can get their sentence reduced if they testify against someone else that the authorities want put away, lengthy solitary confinement and the threat of ridiculously huge sentences, often to pressure someone into taking a plea bargain whether guilty or not … but not here, not in the UK?
A disappointment as catastrophic as this was like the floor collapsing with Gary on it. He rarely showed his emotions and could appear calm on the outside, even when he was dying inside, as he was now.
Gary had arranged to give an interview with Ben Scotchbrook on ITV’s London Tonight the following day. Gary was devastated and broken but people who didn’t know him couldn’t see that. They saw him as confident and self-assured, but nothing could have been further from the truth and we were seriously worried about him. However, I spent hours persuading him to go ahead with the interview as I thought it might help. Anyone who knew Gary could see that he was honest, naive and open, so I thought maybe viewers, including politicians and maybe even the American authorities, would see that too.
CHAPTER 10
NOT AN UGLY DUCKLING (A SWAN)
The following day Gary agreed to go to the TV studio and do the interview as promised. The studio sent a car to take him there and Lucy went with him to support him.
Wilson and I switched on the TV in time to catch the beginning of Gary’s interview. As it transpired, it was one of the most important interviews Gary ever did, and agreeing to it, even when he was severely traumatised, was in retrospect one of the best decisions Gary ever made.
Ben Scotchbrook: There must have been occasions when you got into a military computer … a NASA computer, and you thought, ‘How on earth did I do this?’ What went through your mind when you got that far in?
Gary: I was amazed at the … well, not even the level of security, there was no security. In their indictment they say I left the networks open to further attack, but the networks were completely open to attack … I never had to break into them … it was like logging on … it was like username with no password.
Ben: Did it not occur to you that these guys are the most formidable military force in the world? They came up with the concept of shock-and-awe warfare and you thought ‘I might leave a bit of egg on their faces’?
Gary: Not so much egg. I used to leave messages. I was absolutely shocked at the lack of security. I left messages on almost every system administrator’s desktop, which in a perverse way I hope was helpful because at least it was me there … it wasn’t al-Qaeda.
Ben: Let’s look at one of the messages you are said to have left. ‘US foreign policy is akin to government-sponsored terrorism these days’ … ‘I am Solo’ … ‘I will continue to disrupt at the highest levels’. That message was left in the aftermath of the September 11 attack in 2001. What on earth were you thinking?
Gary: It’s what’s called Hactivism, like hacking as a form of activism, and the disruption is the announcement of your presence there and how ridiculous their security is and also, if you know your history of US foreign policy, in a lot of really credible people’s opinion it is…
Ben: But at best you made them look stupid, at worst you must have sent terror through the network. Don’t tell me you were just doing it to, eh, point out the fact that their passwords weren’t very good.
Gary: I don’t think you send terror through a network by leaving a note on someone’s desktop.
Ben: But you accept now that you were asking for trouble. This wasn’t just fiddling at the edges; you were into the heart of the American military and NASA.
Gary: Yeah, it was incredibly cheeky and incredibly stupid … but the chance to leave messages to very high-up people … I couldn’t resist it at the time.
Ben: So here you are on the brink possibly of being extradited to America, you’re told by American officials that they want to see you fry, according to your defence and you’re … you’ve got the opportunity to say ‘I’m sorry, it was a stupid, stupid thing to do’, and yet you’re still making comments about American foreign policy. That doesn’t strike me as very level headed.
Gary: Well, should I be quiet in my political opinions?
Ben: No, but I would concentrate on the apology; most people would think you might concentrate on the apology.
Gary: I’ve shown remorse on many occasions. I’m hugely disappointed at the moment and hugely angry with my government, so I’m in a bit of a different mood.
Ben: What do you think your actions achieved, in the cold light of day?
Gary: I found what I was after. I found evidence of UFOs and the fact that NASA covered them up and I confirmed that with a photograph.
Ben: What did you see in the photograph?
Gary: It was a very exotic craft. I only saw about two-thirds of the picture. It had no seams or rivets. It didn’t look manmade at all.
Ben: Well, you got what you were looking for; now you may get what the American judicial system is looking for. Can you give us some sort of idea specifically of what you fear might happen to you?
Gary: I’ve seen a letter from one of the official parties in the Department of Justice and they say ‘we will reserve the right to prosecute Mr McKinnon under the enemy combatant law … the military tribunal … military order number one’. That’s frightening. That’s either a completely secret trial with no right of appeal and no right of press awareness, or it’s Guantanamo, which I thought was ridiculous but I’ve been advised I’m accused of allegedly directly attacking American military networks. Whereas most, if not all, of the people in Guantanamo haven’t been proven to be guilty of anything.
Ben: How frightened are you?
Gary: Pretty terrified … but I’m also very angry.
Ben: Was it worth all this?
Gary: No, not at all, but when you think in Britain … I mean, all I’ve done is log on to computers. All right, I’ve left really cheeky political diatribes and, OK, it happened to be the computer of the world sup— the world’s only hyperpower, but I haven’t hurt anyone, no one’s terrorised, no one’s murdered… Sixty years in prison? I mean that guy who’s in The Hague [Radovan Karadžić] is going to get twenty-five and what’s he accused of? Murdering thousands. There’s a huge imbalance.
Ben: If you had American officials in here now, what would you say to them?
Gary: Gi’e us a job … I’m serious. I’d gladly work
for them. I think someone should work for them because every year, the government accountancy office comes out and gives the same report … the same damning report. They’re under federal guidelines for strict computer security and it’s wide open. Every report is the same.
Ben: You wouldn’t say sorry?
Gary: Oh, I already said sorry many times. I said sorry in writing. I’ve said sorry through my solicitors when I’ve had face-to-face meetings with them. I’ve offered to work for them. I’ve been sorry for six years, and now I’m very angry with my own country for throwing me to the dogs.
Gary was so traumatised by the interview that he refused to do any more. Lucy scolded Ben Scotchbrook for his harsh questioning, but Ben was a nice person who hadn’t realised how much it had affected Gary and had only been doing his job.
I thought then that I shouldn’t have talked Gary into doing it. He was far too traumatised for such an ordeal. But I am so glad now that I did: after the interview was aired, Gary’s solicitor’s office was inundated with people ringing and writing in to say that he had Asperger’s syndrome, a form of autism. Initially the receptionist apparently hung up on some of the callers until a young lawyer named Dinkledine picked up the phone during the receptionist’s lunch break and took the information seriously.
We’d never heard of Asperger’s and, like most of the general public, thought that autism meant you had low intelligence and could barely speak. We had never heard of high-functioning autism, but Mr Dinkledine and Karen Todner insisted that Gary should be assessed and, despite our misgivings, we eventually agreed.
Karen arranged for Gary to be assessed by Dr Thomas Berney, a consultant developmental psychiatrist and a leading expert in the field. We also took Gary to see Luke Beardon, who did not officially diagnose him, but said that in his opinion Gary had Asperger’s syndrome.
Gary was already severely traumatised and now we were telling him that he might have autism, which was upsetting him even more.
The tests on Gary were long and intensive and took several days. Dr Berney gave Gary puzzles to solve and spoke in depth to our entire family, to Lucy and to Gary’s ex-partner, Tamsin. It was another of those cathartic questioning sessions which compels you to look deep inside and to analyse everything.
After assessing all the data, on 23 August 2008, Gary was officially diagnosed as having lifelong Asperger’s syndrome, a pervasive developmental disorder. When the doctor explained the effect it has on behaviour, perception of the world, and comprehension of some very basic things, I was astonished at how much it explained. I couldn’t believe that I had never heard of Asperger’s. So much of Gary’s behaviour, problems and misunderstandings – even the meltdowns that caused his intellectual faculties to totally fail – were at last understandable.
Riding on her chariot at lightning speed, within days Karen provided the European Court on Human Rights (ECHR) with this medical evidence to show that extradition would be disproportionate and to ask them to take on Gary’s case.
The very next morning – 28 August – the ECHR refused to even consider taking on Gary’s case. Yet on the same day the ECHR took on Muslim cleric Abu Hamza’s case and halted his extradition on terrorist charges. How would they even have had time to look through the brand new medical evidence on Gary that Karen provided them with?
We were now all feeling paranoid in the extreme, as the authorities could literally come and snatch Gary for extradition at any point. The unrelenting state of fear we were in waiting for the hand on Gary’s shoulder made me acutely aware of the terror slaves were subjected to when being dragged from their homes, families and the land they were born in.
At one point, in the corridors of the court, the prosecutor said that a plane would be arriving – possibly even as soon as that night – to extradite Gary. I was trembling, but still determined that it wasn’t going to happen.
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 recently as the seventeenth century. Human beings were kidnapped, betrayed and sold by their own people and sent to American colonies and plantations.
Tens of thousands of these white slaves were children, which is where the word ‘kidnapped’ comes from. According to the Egerton Manuscripts in the British Museum, the law enacted in 1652 allowed judges to ship Scottish people to a foreign colony or plantation.
This law was repealed when a British Bill of Rights came into force in 1689 and that same Bill of Rights, which disallows cruel and unusual punishment, is still in force today but is being ignored by our courts.
CHAPTER 11
JOURNEY TO UNDERSTANDING
A man who worked in antiques offered to hide Gary for the next few years. The next few years! We knew JC on a casual basis but didn’t know him well, yet he was prepared to do this for Gary. JC was Jewish and understood better than most the absolute terror we were living in. We had always known he was a good man, but such courage and compassion overwhelmed us. Men with that kind of courage are thin on the ground. I’ll never forget what he was prepared to do to help us, but I knew I couldn’t allow him to put himself at risk. His kindness and bravery made me cry.
For Gary, living on the run would have been a terrifying prospect. I knew he would never survive as a fugitive; he just wasn’t made that way. We had to win his freedom legitimately if we were to have any hope of saving his life and returning to some sort of normality.
Karen wanted Gary to have another medical opinion to confirm his diagnosis and to strengthen his case to be tried in the UK. Autistic rights campaigner Nadine Stavonina de Montagnac, who had two autistic children, was one of the first people who immediately recognised that Gary had Asperger’s syndrome. Nadine was warm and intelligent and extremely helpful and knowledgeable. She told us that Professor Simon Baron-Cohen, Richard Mills, Dr Berney and Professor Digby Tantam were renowned leaders in this field.
Karen always engaged the very best of experts for Gary and never once compromised on that. Nadine helped us to get an urgent assessment and Karen arranged for Gary to be assessed by Professor Baron-Cohen at his clinic in Cambridge on 8 September 2008.
When Wilson and I took Gary to be assessed he was terrified of suddenly being snatched. I figured that the police would have to contact Karen first and she would make sure that things were dealt with properly. I didn’t think anyone knew our address, so they wouldn’t be able to snatch Gary without warning. Would they? Now that thought was in my head I couldn’t shake it.
Taking Gary there was the most terrifying thing as we got it into our heads that Gary might suddenly be arrested there and then, and we knew we had to have the assessment done before any arrest took place – we felt that having both Dr Berney’s and Professor Baron-Cohen’s reports could help to save Gary from extradition.
Gary was unshaven and looked tired and rough. I hadn’t been taking care of myself either – my hair needed a wash and I looked tired beyond belief.
Wilson was shattered too and was driving us to Cambridge. The drive was fraught with anxiety and our minds were focused with a healthy measure of paranoia. Wilson drove with his eyes as much on the mirror as on the road, constantly watching to see who was behind us. Several times a suspicious car seemed to be following us only for it to finally turn off, but, as Wilson pointed out, a proper tail involved more than one vehicle for the very purpose of not raising suspicions, so we remained worried.
A car eventually did appear to lock onto us, starting from a few cars back and now matching its speed to ours. If we slowed, it slowed. If we sped up, it did likewise. Every turn we took, the car behind took too, and Gary was in panic mode, while I was trying to think of how we could escape if we were cornered.
We desperately needed this assessment done at all costs.
I asked Wilson to take a different route. He waited until the car was close behind, then on the next roundabout did two full circles, bringing us behind the car where we could then fol
low, see where it went and avoid it. Wilson eventually convinced me that we were no longer being followed, if we even ever had been, and Gary agreed, so we continued to Professor Baron-Cohen’s premises, which turned out to be an old building in large grounds surrounded by trees.
We arrived there looking dishevelled and afraid, like deer caught in the headlights.
As we pulled into the huge driveway we saw two big vans parked there with blacked-out windows, one of which was an armoured security van. I was terrified, convinced that it was the Americans waiting to pounce. We drove up the side and stopped out of sight of the vans and Wilson went in first to find out if everything was OK. Simon Baron-Cohen and his assistant were really nice, and reassured Wilson that the vans were just delivering and not collecting anything or, more importantly, anyone.
While Gary was being assessed, Wilson and I were continually checking the drive and surrounding area, shooting furtive glances around to make sure that no one was lying in wait to kidnap Gary.
Cambridge is a beautiful English university town steeped in tradition. It is the home of Grantchester Meadows and has the most magnificent historic architecture set in the most stunning surroundings, with settlements dating back to Roman times. Happy, carefree students cycled along quaint narrow roads, surrounded by street markets and cafés. In stark contrast, we were trapped in fear. I felt that everyone could see we looked hunted; it’s an animal thing that one human being picks up from another. I glimpsed concern in the eyes of some passers-by.
When Gary’s assessment was eventually completed we felt, for whatever reason, as though a weight had been lifted. We had hope, which is all a human being needs to keep going. We drove back to our house and, once again, we waited.
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