THE day after writing to Gordon Brown to praise his plans to lock up terror suspects for 42 days without charge, Jan arrived home to an extraordinary message left by her son.

It said the Prime Minister had rung to discuss her email and the tragedy that her husband had suffered – and wished her to ring Downing Street when it was convenient.

Before Jan could do so, Mr Brown rang again to thank her for taking the time to write and for her strong support for the tough new terror laws that had split the Labour Party in two.

At the time, the Prime Minister was still under fire over allegations of “pork-barrel politics” that secured the support of Unionist MPs – and won the crucial vote with a majority of just nine. Jan remembered: “He asked how my husband and children were, in a very genuine way, just as anyone else would.

“I thought he sounded very sincere. I was grateful that he took the time out of what must be a busy schedule to ring us and sympathise with our situation.

“He thanked me for my email and said that if there was anything at all that he could do for us then we should let him know.”

However, they did not discuss the issue of compensation.

Jan explained that she was driven to email No.10 because of her fury that the Conservatives opposed the 42-day detention law, and talked instead about “protecting the rights of suspected terrorists”. She said: “Andy suffered 85 days of detention in hospital, just because he got on a train in London one morning.

“What about the civil liberties of the 52 people killed?

“What about the fact that my husband can’t walk on the beach and feel the sand beneath his feet?

“They should be concerned about that, rather than the civil liberties of suspected terrorists detained for 42 days – after some investigation – for trying to kill and injure as many people as possible.”

“In my email, I explained to the Prime Minister that my husband had lost his legs in the July 7 bombings and that, three years on, our lives were still not normal – and never will be.”