A British computer science student is facing extradition to the US where he is accused of setting up a site which provided links to websites that infringed copyright owned by US companies.

Richard O'Dwyer, 23, was in court in Westminster this week.

He ran the TVShack website - one of seven shut down by US authorities last summer.

TVShack was a linking site which was not hosted in the US and did not store any copyright material.

His mum, Julia O'Dwyer from Bolsover, Derbyshire, told the BBC: "To me he's just a geeky boy, who sits in his room messing on his computer. Let's hope our government can bring some common sense to bear to put an end to such unnecessary, yet deeply traumatic, extradition demands.

"We have a perfectly good justice system in the UK - why aren't we using it in cases such as this?"

O'Dwyer must return to court 12 September.

The UK-US extradition agreement has come under increasing criticism. Originally pushed through under the umbrella of anti-terror legislation, it has instead targeted the likes of Gary McKinnon, and software executives. It has also been used against corrupt bankers. ®