By John Owens

What started with an enactment of formality behind closed doors between a few senior politicians in the name of a grey haired, elderly lady has come to this. Thousands upon thousands of messages on Twitter. Sarah Brown embracing a weeping mother. A characteristically tubthumping campaign by The Daily Mail. The case of Asperger’s sufferer Gary Mckinnon has united voices from the left and right in protest against what many see as the country’s abandonment of a vulnerable man to a country whose legal system is desperate to make an example of someone.

Facing up to 70 years in prison for what has been described by American authorities as “the biggest military computer hack of all time" McKinnon, who has always insisted he was searching for evidence of UFOs, is running out of places to turn. Despite the pleas of former Home Secretary David Blunkett, Jacqui Smith decided last October to order his removal, and since then his case has been rejected by House of Lords and the European Court of Human Rights. This High Court decision could prove to be the final stamp in his passport.

That the United States is demanding bloody retribution should not come as a surprise. It was humiliated. Having announced the creation of a new cyber security office and the appointment of a new ‘Cyber Tsar’, Obama will be the last man to stop this extradition going ahead.

It’s important to return to the first sentence of this piece. A treaty came to being in 2003 that, under the ancient rules of Royal Prerogative, bypassed debate in the House of Commons. Signed in the name of the Queen by the Privy Council, the UK-US extradition treaty replaced its 1973 equivalent with a worrying new imbalance.

Whereas before both nations needed to present evidence to the other country’s court when seeking to extradite a suspect, now this requirement was halved; while the British authorities needed to prove “probable cause”, the Americans simply needed to prove “reasonable suspicion”. This means a British citizen can be extradited to the US without any prima facie case of a crime having been committed.

There was an outcry at the time and there still should be. Had Algerian pilot Lofti Raissi- arrested 10 days after 9/11 on charges of terrorism that were thrown out due to lack of evidence after he spent time at Belmarsh Prison- been arrested a few years later he could have been subject to the treaty, and, inevitably, subject to an American government that was desperate to come up with 'solid results' in its war on terror.

Furthermore, while Britain instantly implemented its part of the treaty, the legislation was passed by the United States Congress two and a half years later- due to a lack of democratic procudure, we kept our uneven side of the bargain for that time despite a absence of reciprocity. This symbolises a treaty that is flawed and needs thorough amending if not complete scrapping.

That Gary McKinnon may be extradited to face a potential lifetime in prison is bad enough. But the fact it’s being done under an inherently unequal treaty is not just damaging to him. It is damaging to the British justice system, and the interests of a nation which, its leaders frequently claim, enjoys an equality of standing with that sprawling nation across the Atlantic.