British actress Emma Thompson has taken her name from a petition to support embattled film director Roman Polanski.Polanski, jailed in Switzerland and awaiting extradition to the US, initially drew the support of many Hollywood actors and directors in his bid to be freed from a Zurich prison. Authorities in Los Angeles maintain Polanski must answer to 30-year-old charges involving unlawful sex with a 13-year-old minor.Thompson removed her name from a petition condemning the attempt to extradite Polanski. Martin Scorsese and Woody Allen have voiced support for Polanski.But the UK Independent reports the actress decided to withdraw from the Polanski petition after talking with a 19-year-old female student at Exeter University, where her adopted son graduated.The girl, Caitlin Hayward-Tapp said: "I met her while she was here to take part in One World Week at my university, which raises awareness of diversity. I was due to sit on a panel on gender equality with her but 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. 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."source: Splash News
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