Colin Firth and Julie Christie are amongst celebrities backing a campaign which is lobbying to save the life of a British woman on death row in the US. Other high profile types, such as writers Philip Pullman, Zadie Smith and Martina Cole have also become involved in the fight to stop Linda Carty from being executed, putting their names to a letter to the Sunday Times at the weekend calling for public support.

Carty, convicted of murder in 2002, has recently lodged a last ditch appeal to the US's Supreme Court; if it fails she could be executed within months. The 51 year old grandmother denies the kidnap and killing of Juana Rodriguez, and says she was framed because of her previous work with the Drug Enforcement Agency. The case, and her conviction, has been described as "catastrophically flawed" by anti-death penalty campaigners Reprieve.

The letter to The Times read: "Now is the time to get very worried about Linda - and to support the government's Supreme Court appeal on her behalf. Linda would not be on death row if she had been able to afford a decent defence lawyer. The government has told the Supreme Court that Texas's failure to notify it of her arrest prevented Linda from receiving desperately needed legal assistant from the British consulate - that would probably have saved her life".