Hundreds sign petition in first week

11:55am Thursday 12th April 2007

The relatives of Julian Harrington have been overwhelmed by support for our Justice for Julian campaign.

Hundreds of people have already signed our petition within the first week.

Mr Harrington's relatives have collected many signatures from Witham factories, The Albert and The George pubs in Witham and The Willows pub in Cressing.

His fiancee, Maxine Scrivener, and brother, Nigel Harrington, have scheduled a meeting with MP Brooks Newmark next week to discuss Mr Harrington's treatment and also plan to lobby Euro MP Richard Howitt.

Nigel Harrington said: "Because Cyprus has applied to go in the European Union, really I'm just hoping that the local MP and the Euro MP can put enough pressure on them to realise the way Julian has been treated and the actual trial has not been really good at all.

"I just want them to put pressure on Cyprus that they can't allow English people to go over there and be steamrollered because it isn't fair."

Mr Newmark said he wanted to ensure Mr Harrington received a fair hearing at his appeal.

Among Mr Harrington's supporters is Witham town councillor Kathie Tearle, who has known his family for many years and believes he was treated unfairly in court.

Mrs Tearle was one of many people who wrote a character reference for Mr Harrington, but these were not considered by the court.

"It's just one of those things that whatever they seem to do to try to help, I think most of it has been knocked back by someone or another, and things don't seem to have been done fairly," she said.

Mrs Tearle said Mr Harrington had admitted to making a mistake and had pleaded guilty on legal advice, but had not been treated fairly.

Meanwhile, the prosecution in the case of Mr Harrington's nephews, Michael Binnington and Luke Atkinson, both of Witham, who were acquitted of manslaughter and grievous bodily harm, has lodged an appeal against their acquittal.

Fair Trials Abroad, the charity helping with Mr Harrington's appeal, said this was a matter of course and did not believe it would lead to the court's original decision being overturned.

Solicitor Saima Hirji said it had always been difficult for the prosecution to prove its opinion that the two younger men, as car passengers, planned to use the car to attack the moped carrying Christos Papiris and Marios Demetriou.

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