Julia O’Dwyer’s ‘Terrible Battle’ With The UK Government

Richard O’Dwyer, at just 24, has become one of a growing number of British citizens embroiled in the Kafkaesque extradition system of the UK. All because he created a website – TVShack.net – that didn’t even host copyrighted material, it just linked to content, some of which is online illegally. He now faces up to 10 years in jail if found guilty in the US.

But, thanks to a wave of support, he may be wrenched out of the current nightmare in which he finds himself. Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia, set up a petition earlier this week calling for O’Dwyer to remain in the UK. It has gained a massive amount of signatures in less than five days, hitting 160,000 on Friday.

TechWeekEurope managed to grab some time with O’Dwyer’s biggest supporter – his mother Julia. She talks candidly about what she thinks will happen next, how her life has changed and why the government is going back on its promises.

More signatures please!

Now you have all this support, what happens now?
The petition has only been up for four days, so it is early days with that. I’m sure we will continue trying to promote that and get even more support from it. I’m not too sure where we are going next, but we will probably chat to Jimmy about how we take it forward and what else we can do.

But we do need to get more signatures on the petition because the government really doesn’t take notice of that sort of thing unless it has remarkable numbers on it. It wouldn’t look good to the public if the government ignored such a large petition.

How much traction are you getting within government?
Quite a number of MPs who are supporting us have been fighting against extradition laws for years, they’re not actually our MPs but they’ve been very supportive. People like Dominic Raab, Keith Vaz, David Burrowes, Caroline Lucas – they are MPs who are knowledgeable about extradition law. Rabb and Vaz have spoken out in defence of Richard recently, as well as David Davis and Sir Menzies Campbell.

That’s the sort of communication we’ve had from MPs, we haven’t had any kind of communication with anyone in the government because it is the government that is facilitating extradition really.

How hopeful are you right now? Are you feeling more upbeat after this week when you’ve had such massive backing?
It’s really appreciated. It is coming at a time when the government has already said it is going to be announcing shortly their plans on any changes to that extradition law.

But in terms of that in itself being effective, I’m not too sure because there are other people who’ve been fighting against extradition for a number of years, who have had equally good support and campaigns behind them. It is a terrible battle to be fighting against your own government.

Have you thought about what you’re going to do if Richard is extradited?
We’re not really thinking about that because we are trying to avoid it so we will be tackling it from whatever angle we can. At the minute we’re concentrating on tackling the British government because it is they that have the powers to change the law, which they promised to do before they came to power. We are trying to ramp up the pressure on them.

You’ve obviously had a tonne of support. Have you had any people campaigning against you?
No. I have to say I haven’t had any negative responses at all. Even a lot of people from the film and media industry have been supporting by signing the petition. Perhaps they might be the ones who you wouldn’t necessarily expect to be supportive but they have been. That gives you an idea about what people are feeling about this case.

Trying to forget…

How’s Richard doing? And how has your life been affected?
He’s doing his course and this year he’s actually working, like an internship thing. He’s busying himself and tries not to dwell on this too much, except when we’ve got to go to the the lawyers or we’ve got to discuss papers. Generally he’s trying not to be worrying about it the whole time.

I had about six months off at first because it was just so stressful and I couldn’t concentrate on anything else apart from that. But I’m back at work [Julia is a nurse] but still I’d rather not be there because this is all very time consuming, it takes over. Especially in the last couple of weeks and Jimmy has launched the petition, it has been hectic. It does take over your life and you try to maintain a bit of normality at the same time.

What happens now? Are there deadlines you have to meet?
We’re waiting for a date for Richard’s appeal, but that will be in October or November. We have a little bit of fighting time between now and then to ramp things up.

Is there anything you’d like to hear from home secretary Theresa May on the case or extradition in general?

Well Theresa May is constrained by the law this government has allowed to remain unchanged. Everybody pointed out that the Blair government introduced this law and since it was introduced everybody has been fighting against it. Mrs May will only quote some canned response, she doesn’t have very much power.

The power is with parliament and what is required is that they have to make a slight amendment to the law to protect British citizens in the same way that Americans are protected. Americans can’t be extradited for something they’ve done in America, whereas they are trying to extradite a good half a dozen at least who have never set foot in America for crimes they are alleged to have committed in the UK.

Once this is all over, whatever happens, will you carry on campaigning against this law?
Definitely. I certainly will.

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