Thank you for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page. This year Clare & I are celebrating our birthdays with a screening of the new Bond film ‘Skyfall’ and I am asking my guests to consider making a donation to the legal charity Fair Trials International (FTI), of which I am a Trustee and Treasurer.

FTI does an amazing job helping people arrested in a country other than their own to uphold their right to a fair trial. Each year, the charity helps hundreds of people in this situation, many of whom have been held for months or years before their trial starts and have been denied the most basic of rights (such as access to a lawyer within the police station). To read about some of the people the charity has helped visit the FTU Website (www.fairtrials.net).

The charity runs on around £500,000 a year, including larger grants to support its law reform campaigns (it campaigns, for example, for the reform of the UK’s extradition arrangements and to prevent unjustified pre-trial detention in Europe). The charity does not charge for any of its services and relies on the generosity of individuals to provide support to hundreds of vulnerable suspects each year.

The money raised at the screening will support FTI’s casework function, including taking important steps to improve its casework capacity. This will include condensing some of its expert knowledge into accessible advice booklets; finding new ways to work with volunteers from City law forms; and translating its existing resources into other European languages.