A FEW months ago, TV screens were awash with images of Pentagon hacker Gary McKinnon, after he won a decade-long battle against extradition to the US. Pictured alongside him was his solicitor, Karen Todner, who fought his corner all the way from the High Court to the European Court of Human Rights.

Named Legal Personality of the Year by the Law Society and ranked in legal bible Chambers Directory as a ‘force to be reckoned with', the Oxfordshire-based blonde is something of a celebrity in her own right.

Apart from the McKinnon case, she has represented a string of other high-profile clients including Christopher Tappin, the British businessman jailed for selling arms to Iran and members of Internet-hacking group Anonymous.

During the 10 years she represented McKinnon, Karen inevitably become close to him and his mother, Janis Sharp and her joy at the fact he now faces no criminal charges her in the UK either, is obvious. She said: “I probably shouldn’t have been but I was very emotionally involved in that case.

“My family were too, we talked about it over dinner and all had views on it.

“The day the McKinnon announcement was made, I was up at 5am to do radio interviews and my children were up too, waiting for the decision. They were very much part of it.”

Home is Broughton Hall, near Filkins, which she shares with top criminal barrister Ian Jobling and their three boys, Alexander, 14 and 13-year old twins Harry and Matthew.

They decamped from London 10 years ago after winning a Cotswold weekend in an auction of promises.

She says: “We woke up on the Saturday morning with the sun shining and thought ‘Why on earth don’t we live here?’

“Broughton Hall was ‘house of the week’ in the Saturday Telegraph, so we went to look and three months later, moved in.

“We didn’t check anything like schools or commuting, just said ‘Blimey, we can afford that’.”

The couple, who have been married 16 years, met in a bar in Chancery Lane and had their wedding in the rather splendid setting of St Paul’s Cathedral. On days off and at weekends, she enjoys watching her sons play cricket or rugby and the family is immersed in village life.

“When we lived in London, our lives completely revolved around lawyers.

“We would see them in the day at work and have dinner with them in the evenings.

“One of the things we really like about living out here is that our social lives revolve around people unconnected to the law.”

She describes herself as “a bit of a control freak” but added: “I hope I am very loving and probably far too soft.”

As with every working mother, something has to give: “I know where the iron is but don’t think I have used it in two or three years.

“I am pretty hopeless about tidying up and don’t cook. I am always multi-tasking on my BlackBerry or laptop, so I’ll go off and make a phone call then come back to find the food’s ruined.”

Amazingly, given her workload, she has also found time to venture into the hair business, after deciding to back her stylist John Tivendale when he launched his own salon in Witney.

Her business credentials are not in doubt — after setting up her own law practice, Kaim Todner, more than 20 years ago, she employs 80 people across two London offices.

Her rise to the top has been against the odds, in that she is female and from a solid working class background in Sunderland. While studying law at Exeter University in the 1980s, she was the only person on her course from a state school.

Her career started in commercial law but she was bored and asked to be transferred to the criminal department of her firm.

She remembered: “I absolutely loved it because you meet people of all different types as a criminal lawyer. I was earning a quarter of my friends in city firms but in the pub after work, they all wanted to talk to me about my day because it was interesting.

“Your work is such a large part of your life, if you don’t enjoy it there is no point in doing it.”

She encountered chauvinism back in the 1990s, when some found it difficult to believe a young, attractive blonde was a partner in a law firm.

“The judiciary is very white-male oriented, even now, so I am still very much in the minority because there are very few senior female partners around.”

The switch from criminal law to extradition came about through the McKinnon case.

“Gary contacted me in 2002 and at that point was going to be prosecuted here. “I represented him for two years before I got a call saying they wanted to extradite to the US.

“I think it is fair to say I didn’t really even know what the word ‘extradition’ meant. I bought a book, read it from cover to cover and we took it from there.”

She believes passionately that the extradition laws should be changed: “It is an absolute disgrace and needs to be overhauled very quickly.

“Someone described extradition once as being like a plane crash, in that it is rare but when it happens to you, it is a major disaster.

“I see it on a day-to-day basis and it is horrendous.

“Part of the problem is that a lot of people don’t know about it, so I feel it is my responsibility to make them aware of it. Two years ago, I went to visit someone in prison in Athens and cried when I saw the conditions he was held. There were four men to a cell, no mattresses or glass in the windows, so when it rains, water pours in.

“The food is appalling and there are constant fights, with people murdered on a fairly regular basis.

“My client was extradited, stood trial and was acquitted but only after having spent a year in that Greek prison - and there are many other cases like that.”

Although able to pick and choose cases, she dislikes turning people away: “One thing I learned very early in this business is not to make any assumptions or predictions on people’s guilt or innocence because invariably, you will be wrong.

“I’ve had clients who I’ve absolutely thought were innocent, the trial’s taken place and they have been convicted and said ‘Oh, don’t worry about it, I was guilty anyway’ and vice versa where I thought this person was guilty and they have been innocent.

“I learned a long time ago that my opinion isn’t really that important.”

But doesn’t she feel aggrieved if she pulls all the stops out, only to discover the person was guilty all along?

She shrugged: “It is my job and that is what I am there to do.

“We have a justice system in which I am a player and although there are miscarriages of justice, in general terms, it works well.

“It is all about getting the right result for the underdog. Making a difference and making sure the right side wins.”