 I'd like to go to Lisa Johnson now. Lisa tell us from your perspective what you make of the medical grounds of this appeal. Bill's absolutely right that it's a desperate attempt to discredit Copelman and I feel like you know yet again we're at a juncture where the US is really scraping the bottom of the barrel to try and prop up their non-existent case, prop up their groundless appeal whereas Bill said they were taking Copelman on the grounds that he sought to protect Stella and Julian's children from harm and at the most recent hearing where the grounds for appeal were broadened that was characterized as being a lapse as being biased. There are things called criminal procedure rules that you know get a lot of lawyer but I understand that was what was said to be violated and under those rules expert witnesses need to be impartial and objective so there's an argument that protecting Stella showed that he was partial and not objective should be thrown out and they said that Judge Baraitza downplayed that too much she said it was understandable human response for they're saying well you know that's not good enough but all of that is really a mischaracterization of what went on so you know it wasn't a lapse it wasn't biased and even to call it an understandable human response is it was more than that so in terms of being biased you know Copelman submitted two reports one was at the end of 2019 that was where he protected the identity of Stella and children then another one following year just before the September hearings then their identities were already known. During his first report you know to conceal the identities of Stella and their children worked against Julian's interests it worked against the defense case and it even worked against Copelman's own arguments because he was arguing extradition to the US poses a very high risk of suicide and he said to the extent that he I'm as certain as any psychiatrist can be that Julian Assange would suicide that's a very strong statement you don't often hear psychiatrists and psychologists say something with that much certainty around suicide and Copelman has decades of experience he's very senior he's former chair of about five psychological bodies on the editorial boards of a bunch of peer review journals he's right up there so why would he you know and the fact that Julian has young children and he's in an ongoing relationship with their partner and he speaks to them as often as he can in Belmarsh and that's one of the things it's a protective factor and that later came out as a key protective factor and one of the reasons that extradition would be such a risk is that Julian would be separated from his children and his family so why would Copelman suppress that when it was in Julian's interest and the fact that he did really is the opposite of bias it's the height of objectivity and you know that was more than a human response he was required to do that by his codes of ethics and professional practice psychologists and psychiatrists have code of ethics that they need to abide by so he was both an expert witness and he's also a psychologist and a psychiatrist so he had codes of ethics that he's bound by in each of those areas and as a psychologist and psychiatrist we're required to prevent harm and avoid acting in a way that can cause harm and being an expert witness doesn't change that and where children at risk psychologists and psychiatrists are required to the child welfare is paramount always so I'll just read the relevant sections of the ethical codes that Copelman was bound by so the Royal College of Psychiatrists with respect to responsibilities of psychiatrists who provide expert opinion to courts says there's a duty obviously to form an opinion fairly and honestly about matters relevant to the court however psychiatrists must still pay attention to their medical ethical duties they need to have regard to the person's welfare and to the prevention of harm albeit they are seeing the individual in a legal context so those ethical duties that that refers to so that's for expert witnesses the ethical duties of a psychologist and a psychiatrist under the codes of ethics that they're required to prevent serious harm occurring to another person they need to ensure the avoidance of harm in which quote the child's needs are paramount psychologists and psychiatrists should contribute to whatever actions are needed to safeguard children the needs or interests of adults should not be allowed to take precedence ahead of the needs of the child so that's what Copelman was bound by that's what he abided by and yes no doubt there was an understandable human response but he was also upholding his ethical responsibilities you know both as an expert witness and as a psychologist and a psychiatrist and as Bill talked about you know he knew at the time what the world knows now that Julian and his family were under threat threats of kidnapping and poisoning and any psychologist or psychiatrist worth their soul knows that an entity and that's essentially the prosecution and the prosecution is the US national security state that's the same entity that was talking about kidnapping and poisoning this Jordan's father and Stella said after the most recent hearing on the appeal that they've been enduring unpublicized threats and intimidation for years so these are things the public doesn't know about but now thanks to Yahoo a lot of even CNN reported on the kidnapping threats and so on Copelman knew that so any psychiatrist knows that any entity that's plotting to murder and kidnap a defendant is capable of anything so he had to protect those children he had no choice it wasn't biased it was ethical conduct so you know I feel that at this point the British judiciary is at a really critical juncture in terms of the credibility and integrity of the British legal system you know because on the one hand they can stand with the prosecution that's been plotting to kidnap and poison the defendant who's the key witness is a convicted fraudster with a history of child sex abuse they can stand there and seek to discredit a psychiatrist who's upholding his code of ethics and his responsibilities to protect child welfare or they can uphold an expert witnesses right and obligation to act ethically and I guess at this juncture it's no surprise that prosecution would be hostile to ethical conduct but you know hopefully that's not the case for the British judiciary so you know that's an important thing I think to be aware of in terms of Copelman's testimony and it's a bit rich also that the prosecution is seeking to discredit Copelman when Copelman was the only expert witness to assess Julian during the time when he was suffering from severe mental health difficulties when he was in the healthcare wing the other saw him after he'd been moved into general population and you know he was feeling better as a result Copelman saw him 17 times prosecution witness saw him a couple of times for a handful of hours the rates it was very sort of glowing in her description of Copelman's testimony because it was exemplary it was over around a year he reviewed the prison records extremely thoroughly which the prosecution witness Blackwood didn't got a lot of that wrong Copelman took great pains to research background material history previous visits with psychologists and so on Blackwood got into court and just like the first judge at the bail hearing called Julian a narcissist so the prosecution calling Copelman biased is really the pot calling the kettle black which has been something that the prosecution's done all the way through this I mean one more thing to be said about the most recent hearing the psychological evidence was also mischaracterized by the prosecution the prosecution said that the prosecution expert witnesses disagreed that Julian showed traits of being on the autism spectrum and that's not true they both said that he showed autism traits there was only one witness who had the expertise to diagnose autism spectrum disorder that was Dealey and he performed a structured interview as you should he has a long long background working with autism he heads up the national autism unit he's published papers on diagnosing autism including and high functioning people which is a very specialized very difficult area you require a lot of experience and expertise to be able to do that Dealey was the only one with that expertise so he's the one that made the diagnosis but the prosecution witnesses did say that Julian showed autism traits which is the material issue as far as suicide risk is concerned whether he shows those traits so essentially elaborating on what Bill said that this is really a desperate attempt scraping the bottom of the barrel to to attack rock solid medical evidence