A parent’s work is never done. John Shipton entering his ninth decade. He’d like to kick back, maybe learn a few recipes, stroll at a leisurely pace towards the declining years.

But his son needs him. His son’s health is in serious danger and his future looks dark, with the prospect of spending decades, if not the remainder of his life, in prison.

His son is Julian Assange. It’s a name that is familiar to most people, although many would, at this remove, find it difficult to couple his celebrity standing with his talent or achievement.

Assange is an Australian who has been a serious thorn in the side of the powerful. His Wikileaks organisation was responsible for disseminating information that showed what exactly the US and its allies were getting up to in foreign wars.

Wikileaks exposed war crimes. It was the receptor for whistleblower Chelsea Manning’s treasure trove of documents that painted a picture of torture and maltreatment by US forces in Iraq, among other crimes.

Vanity Fair described the resultant stories as “one of the greatest journalistic scoops of the last 30 years… they have changed the way people think about how the world is run”.

In 2011, Assange sought refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy in London at a time when he was due to be extradited to Sweden on what he claims were trumped-up allegations of sexual assault.

His belief was that Swedish law would make it more easier to pack him off to the US, where he could be tried and imprisoned as an enemy of the state. At the time, the Americans were not actively seeking to extradite him.

So he moved into the Ecuadorian embassy in Knightsbridge and stayed there until declining relations with his host ended with expulsion last April. Following that, he was sentenced to 50 weeks in prison for skipping bail, a term that concluded on September 23.

He is now back on remand awaiting an extradition hearing in response to a request from the US, where he faces charges that carry a penalty of up to 175 years in prison.

He is being detained in Britain’s high-security Belmarsh Prison, which houses some of the worst of the worst of criminals. Assange is a category B prisoner, which means he’s not considered an immediate danger to fellow human beings or society in general, but his conditions of detention are still onerous.

“He’s locked up 22 or 23 hours a day,” his father says. “It’s a grade A maximum security prison. Because those in it are treated like terrorists, that’s what Julian is being subjected to.”

Shipton was in Dublin recently on a flying visit that now forms part of his current “job”. That entails lobbying, meeting, and publicising on behalf of his son. Shipton is on a tour of European capitals trying to round up support.

“I’m at this full time,” he says.

“When I met him I got a bit overwrought and he said to me: “Will you come and help, will you move to the UK?’ What am I going to say? ‘No, I’m going to surfer’s paradise for a holiday.”?

Assange is in a bad way, there is no doubt about that. Both physically and psychologically, his condition is deteriorating. The prison conditions are onerous but they come following eight years cooked up in the embassy, at times under serious stress. The day before arriving in Dublin Shipton had been in to see his son.

“As you would expect after nine years of persecution, he’s a bit down in the dumps,” he says.