Janis Sharp, mother of Gary McKinnon, was another of the impressive non-legal speakers yesterday.

When that knock comes to your door,

she said

everyone thinks it won’t be me, but one day, it can be …

it’s a relief, she told the audience, to find that a solicitor will take your case. She attacked the proposed legal aid cuts in principle

To find out that lawyers in the future will be offered financial incentives to have a quick guilty plea, is so, so wrong

and it terms of their effects

when someone’s in trouble, and they walk round to their high street solicitors – they won’t be there. They walk round the corner to another – they won’t be there.

She may have had Sadiq Khan in mind (he’d spoken shortly before) when she said

This is not party political, because the cuts started in 1997, and have continued through both governments

and she finished with a warning for politicians:

There’s an election coming up. We want it in stone – this has to change – and we’ll think about who we elect, and it will depend on equal rights.

2014-03-08T13:20:34+00:00