Emma Thompson 'withdraws name from petition to free Roman Polanski'

Hollywood actress Emma Thompson has agreed to withdraw her name from a petition to free incarcerated filmmaker Roman Polanski following a fan's appeal.

The Oscar-winning actress had signed a petition to free Polanski, who has been imprisoned since September (09) on the request of Los Angeles law officials.

However, during her trip to Exeter University in the U.K. earlier this month, Thompson was accosted by a student named Caitlin Hayward-Tapp, who requested her to retract her support.

And after a lengthy chat Thompson agreed.

"I asked if I could speak to her (in person). She is such an inspirational woman, I reckoned she must have been willing to reconsider," the Daily Express quoted Hayward-Tapp as saying.

"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 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," she added.

Polanski is facing extradition to the U.S. to face sentencing over a 1977 charge of unlawful sex with a 13-year-old girl. (ANI)

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