EMMA THOMPSON TAKES BACK HER SUPPORT FOR POLANSKI

Emma Thompson was among the celebrities to sign her name to a petition to free child rapist Roman Polanski from his Swiss jail cell. She has changed her mind. The Oscar-winner took a trip to Exeter University in the UK and was approached by a student who asked her to take back her statement of support. Caitlin Hayward-Tapp, who had set up a petition for people opposed to freeing the sex offender, sat and spoke with Thompson for 15 minutes and said that Thompson agreed to take her name off the petition supporting Polanski. "It turned out she was very willing to hear what I had to say. She said she knows Roman Polanski and that she had had calls from friends asking her to sign the petition. She knows what a terrible early life he (Polanski) had. She went on to state, "She said she had already been thinking a lot about the petition, as others had expressed their dismay at her signing it. We talked for 15 minutes and by the end she said she would get her name removed. She said regardless of the fact she knows him and the terrible things he has been through, a crime is a crime. If she doesn't do this, it'd be a great shame." Polanski is facing extradition back to the US for the 1977 charges of unlawful sex with a 13-year-old girl to which he pled guilty and then fled the country. He has been refused bail in Switzerland because he is thought to be a flight risk. [source][picture source]