Saving Gary McKinnon by Janis Sharp Read Free Book Online Page A

belonging to Eleanor, my sister-in-law, but I had never seen her with such an intense look. With a fixed serious expression she ordered me: ‘Look at Gary!’ and repeated again but more urgently, ‘Look at Gary!’
    I woke up and realised I’d been dreaming. But I could feel my heart beating twice as fast as normal as panic rose to my throat, staying longer than it should have on account of a dream. Even after I found my voice, that gnawing feeling of anxiety didn’t fade. I felt something was wrong and I phoned Gary to make sure he was OK but there was no answer and I panicked.
    ‘Wilson, we have to go to Gary’s, something’s wrong.’
    Fortunately Wilson listens to me. We got dressed, grabbed our coats and got into the car.
    ‘Damn! Someone has parked in front of the drive; I hope he’s going to move. The entire road is empty and he blocks our drive.’
    The driver eventually moved his van, with irritating slowness. We drove straight to Gary and Tamsin’s ground-floor flatin north London, which they rented from Tamsin’s aunt, who lived upstairs.
    I had a sense of foreboding as I rang the bell. No answer. I rang again. I waited and still no answer. I peered anxiously through the front window and caught a glimpse of movement. The relief I felt when Gary opened the door, still in his dressing gown with bleary eyes, hair sticking up and looking bemused as to why we were there so early in the morning, made me smile with a mixture of relief and affection.
    Gary looked thinner; I hadn’t noticed before and hoped he was eating enough. We stayed for a while. I looked around and everything seemed fine, but Gary looked troubled. Only much later did I learn that Gary had been up all night on his computer and still hadn’t been to bed.
    If only I’d known then, or somehow understood what the dreams meant, maybe I could have done something – like throwing Gary’s computer out of the window.
    I can’t explain why dreams sometimes come true but they sometimes do.
    • • •
    Wilson and I had been thinking about fostering children and embarked on the cathartic and emotional process of being assessed.
    The extent and type of questions asked makes you reach deep into your soul. It’s like looking into a mirror and seeing yourself for the first time. You learn much more about who you are and why you are as you are and what experiences in your life played a vital role in shaping the person you’ve become.
    Fostering was always something we knew we would do when we were a bit older as we believed that if the majority of familiesfostered at least one child there would be virtually no need for children’s homes. The time seemed right and we decided to foster siblings to stop them from being split up, as happens all too often. We’d just been approved to foster when out of the blue on 19 March 2002 Gary was arrested and our lives were turned upside down. Our lives really did change ‘just like that’, as my sister had foretold in the dream, and in more ways than one.
    Gary and Tamsin were arrested and held in custody for about eight hours. Gary was questioned by the British Hi-Tech Crime Unit and released on bail but was not charged. The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) stated their intention to prosecute Gary. They also told him that as he hadn’t caused any damage or sent any malicious codes the likely sentence would be approximately six months’ community service. The fact that Gary had accessed Pentagon computers filled me with dread but when we heard nothing further, we began to dare to hope that no charges would be brought.
    It was Easter Saturday. The Queen Mother had died just seven weeks after her daughter Princess Margaret. Her body lay in state in the Palace of Westminster, a grand and opulent building that, unbeknown to us, would soon become an all-too-familiar part of our lives.

CHAPTER 7
FOSTERING
    O ne day the phone rang and we were asked to foster five young siblings. It was an emergency. The youngest