As another year draws to a close, my son Nick has now spent 2 years and 7 months in detention and this will be his 3rd Christmas behind bars - far from his family and young son George.

His next hearing, set for December 7th, will be his last this year. Nick's legal team filed leave to appeal at the Tokyo High Court way back in January. I am saddened to note that the excruciatingly slow wheels of Japanese justice, arguably designed to discourage appeals, have ensured that Nick's total time spent in court this year was less than 12 hours. The other 8,750 hours he languished - in solitary confinement - at the Tokyo Detention Centre. I really cannot see how this treatment is consistent with the Japanese constitution's Article 37 [1]: "In all criminal cases the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial..."

Looking back at 2004, we have however had some very encouraging developments along with the difficult times. Reflecting on those positive developments, I remind myself how very lucky I am for the support I have had from the network of many selfless people from all corners of the world, without whom I could never have come this far.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank Shunji Miyake and Nick's legal team, all my website supporters and every single person who has signed the petition and donated their time and money to the campaign. I want to thank the many people in Japan who regularly visit Nick. I would also like to welcome aboard our Japanese friends from The Govinda Innocence Advocacy group, along with our support network coordinator in Japan, Kyohei Imai, and the many other Japanese reformers who have volunteered invaluable technical and moral support. Thank you all from the bottom of my heart.

I am pleased to note that our petition drive today stands at 3,581 signatures and we have raised £8,568. Nick has received more than 120 postcards from 35 countries as part of our ongoing "Postcardathon" drive to raise his spirits.

Newspaper and the media continue to highlight Nick's plight for which I am most grateful. The International Bar Association prominently featured Nick's case in their January report critical of the Japanese interrogation system. In June, Nick was Fair Trials Abroad's "Prisoner of the Month". Politicians, among them UK Members of Parliament and Member's of the European Parliament, continue to offer their generous support. A documentary film is in the works, and runner Nic Holmes dedicated his participation in the Blackpool marathon raising much needed funds.

Just this last September, I had the opportunity to meet with The Right Honorable Ms Mizuho Fukushima, the leader of Japan's SDP opposition party, who graciously listened to and acted upon Nick's story. In October, I was particularly heartened to see the repatriation of prisoner Chris Snell to the UK.

Alas, perhaps in part due to these successes, our growing support network has experienced some negative reactions, and even a criminal internet attack. I was initially unsure whether to make these incidents public, but will deal with them here.

First I would like you to cast your minds back to first appeal hearing and the subsequent "resignation" of the court translator. What you may not know is the rest of the story. Here is a report written by a sympathetic British journalist last spring. I asked him not to put it out because I feared that could hurt Nick, but with permission, I have decided to release it now.

The Japanese human-rights advocate Makoto Endo once said, "The Japanese criminal trial is a puppet show put on by the prosecution. It is scripted by the prosecution, the puppets are the prosecutors themselves and the judges. The defendant and defense lawyer are bystanders in what is already a forgone conclusion".The Japanese courts' 99.97% conviction rate seems proof that the accused has practically zero chance of acquittal when led into a Japanese courtroom.

If the Japanese courtroom really is a place of marionettes, incredibly, Tokyo High Court officials now believe they can stretch the puppet strings all the way to the small English town of Malmesbury, Wiltshire, some 30 miles North-East of Bristol.

Malmesbury is home to Iris Baker, 55, whose son, Nick, was arrested at Tokyo's Narita Airport in April 2002 when MDMA and cocaine were found in the false bottom of a suitcase. Nick was later convicted and sentanced to 14 years imprisonment at labour and a 5 million Yen (£27,000) fine at Chiba District Court in June 2003.

On March 23rd 2004, some nine months after his conviction, Nick appeared before the Tokyo High Court for the first hearing of his appeal. Soon afterward, his supporters posted the following account of the hearing on their website: (excerpted)

"A young female [court] translator was mostly inaudible. At times Nick craned his neck and pressed forward over the desk, hand cupped round his ear, in an attempt to hear better. But the translator could not see Nick, as she was hunchbacked throughout her recital, her head buried in the text. From the public gallery, not a square inch of her face was visible as she mumbled into her desk. For some 45 minutes, the translator read through the defense argument, completing 14 of the 33 pages before Judge Tao instructed her to stop as time had run out.

At the end of the session, two of Nick's supporters surveyed people exiting the courtroom, asking if they had clearly heard the translator. Nobody had."

This is where the story gets interesting. Nick's family and supporters had been aware for some time that the Japanese Ministry of Justice was closely monitoring their support website. As an example, the following screen provided by the website's tracking software records five Ministry of Justice visits in a one month period between April 19, 2004 - May 19, 2004 ("moj.go.jp" where 'moj' is Ministry of Justice, 'go' is 'government, and 'jp' is Japan):

The support network says this surveillance had been ongoing since shortly after the site was put up in the summer of 2003 - in fact, one supporter claimed that the MOJ seem to have spent more time monitoring the site than Nick has had court-time. However, Iris Baker never dreamed the Ministry would use their leverage (holding Nick captive with a 14 year sentence hanging over his head) in an attempt to censor the site. But, soon after the report critical of the translator appeared, the website received a demand from High Court officials via Nick's legal team, who sent the following e-mail message to the Justice for Nick Baker Website: (excerpt)

"Today we received a claim from High Court that your web site is too aggressive to court translator? If you can revise your opinion regarding court translator on web site, we sincerely appreciate it. We believe it is too dangerous to make High Court angry."

Nick's family and supporters did not want to compromise anyone's position, but they decided not to cave in to the court's demand for the removal of what they considered an accurate account of the first hearing. The report remained on the website, in defiance of the court's demand.

Then, on May 6th, just two working days before Nick's second appeal hearing, the Tokyo High Court suddenly contacted Mr Miyake and told him that the translator had "resigned," there was no replacement (Note that Nick is not permitted to hire his own translator), and the hearing was cancelled.

After two weeks of anxiously awaiting news, Nick was finally informed that the second hearing of his appeal would be rescheduled for June 17. This further delay meant that after waiting almost one year for the courts to schedule his first appeal hearing (which lasted one hour), Nick has had to wait almost three months for his second hearing. This is especially troubling considering that Japanese courts do not give full credit for time served in detention while awaiting or undergoing trial.

In an E-mail interview Iris Baker commented:

"The supporter's website is maintained by myself and a network of volunteers. It is neither registered nor hosted in Japan, and the following disclaimer appears (in both English and Japanese) on each page:

"This site was created by Nick's family and supporters. It is not edited or controlled in any way by Nick's legal advisors or by Nick himself."

The Tokyo High Court has no business whatsoever contacting Nick or his legal advisors regarding anything that is said on the site and for the court to do so is nothing more than a wholly inappropriate attempt at censorship - shameful and cowardly given the dynamic of the relationship between a prisoner and his keepers. This pressure treads on the guarantee of free speech enshrined in the Japanese Constitution. I will not take down the website, I will continue to fight for a fair trial for my son and will not bow to intimidation of this nature."

In May, I began receiving malicious e-mails written as if by a non-native English speaker. The anonymous messages were received over about two weeks, and demanded I transfer £10,000 to a Western Union office or else the e-mailer's "associates" would start an attack "detrimental to Nick's appeal".

I asked a UK supporter who is good with computers to look into this, and she traced the messages to a Slovakian free-mail server, called "inmail.sk" and discovered that the bungling criminals had SENT TEST MESSAGES to their real e-mail addresses shortly after setting-up the fake account. Others were also sent messages that could be traced, and that is all I am supposed to say!

Needless to say, no funds were transferred and since no "associates" were forthcoming, clearly there was never any information to impart from the outset. Contact from the extortionists ceased as abruptly as it had begun.

I have nothing to hide and will not bow to illegal extortion attempts.