Home Secretary Theresa May has agreed the extradition to the US of 9 year old Justin Beesley of Gosport in Hampshire who was accused earlier this week by US Customs and Immigration Agency of ‘piracy’ following a key role the youngster played in his school’s festive holiday production of Peter Pan.
Justin’s mum Beverley said the family were ‘shocked and surprised’ when a delegation of US and UK police officers raided their home in Richmond Close and took away a number of items relating to the play, including a cardboard cutlass, a Lego parrot, four mint chocolate doubloons and a picture disc copy of Adam Ant’s 1981 chart-topper Prince Charming
Officials from the US agency accuse Justin and his friend Toby (2nd pirate) of a serious breach of homeland security on the eastern seaboard and of threatening the safety of seafaring Americans for six consecutive nights in early January.
Mrs. Beesley admitted her son had taken part in the school play but insisted that at no time had he (Justin) or any of his school friends deliberately set out to undermine US homeland security and that they had in fact been really quite tired after the show and most nights had been in bed by 9:30 thus missing a re-run of the Dr.Who Christmas Special on BBC4
Mrs Beesley conceded the production of Peter Pan could have been a little bit better and thinks the extradition order may have been placed – and she insists unfairly placed - on her son because he kept forgetting the name of the crocodile and asked that the US Government bare in mind that Justin is just 9 years old and comes out in prickly heat when he gets over excited.
However, fears that the schoolboy could end up in the US infamous covert prison system were somewhat allayed when Justin’s mum admitted the schoolboy had already spent 5 years as a pupil at the Gomer Junior School in Alverstoke and had shown in the past that –no matter how brutal, no matter how harsh the regime – his spirit could not be broken by government intelligence enforcers.
The fate of Justin is bound to crop up in talks between President Obama and David Cameron during his visit to the White House but the charge of piracy levelled against the 9 year old will be hard for the British PM to argue and a quick flick through the pantomime programme surely provides more than just circumstantial evidence to warrant extradition to the US for the part he played in Gomer Junior School’s production of Peter Pan.
THE CAST
Peter Pan: Deborah Carling
Wendy Darling: Fay Rhyss
Tinkerbell: Miranda Claybrook
Captain James Hook : Justin Beesley
First Pirate: Josh Finlay
Second Pirate: Toby Fordham
