Our History

Fair Trials International was established in 1992 (initially, as Fair Trials Abroad) after lawyer Stephen Jakobi OBE became involved in the case of a young British woman, Karyn Smith, sentenced to 25 years in Thailand after a grossly unfair trial. Thanks to our intervention, Karyn was finally pardoned by the King of Thailand, released and able to return home to the UK.

For someone like Karyn, arrested thousands of miles from home, the obstacles to a fair trial are enormous: you do not speak the local language, are ignorant of your rights and have no local contacts to support you. Fair Trials International was established to help people overcome these barriers and, in 2000, became a registered charity.

In 2007, the charity changed its name to Fair Trials International, to better reflect its aims and its work. Since then, Fair Trials International’s small staff team has grown and is now supported by a growing pool of experts across the globe. We can now respond to many more requests for assistance and are doing more than ever before to tackle the root causes of injustice in cross-border cases.

Despite these changes, the charity’s guiding vision has remained the same: a world where everyone’s right to a fair trial is respected, whatever their nationality, wherever they are accused.