I don't recognise the UK (or "England") you are remembering, Bert. Perhaps your memories are a bit hazy.

If McKinnon has Aspergers, then any narrow-focus brainpower he has is likely to be related to that condition. And it will be that brainpower that has helped him do what the Pentagon was naively hoping no-one - not even serried ranks of KGB codebreakers and tekkies - could ever do. If Jack thinks McKinnon got into the systems by plodding through a few thousand password possibilities, he's as naive as the Pentagon. As has been said several times, someone should be harnessing McKinnon's gift, not locking him up.

The primary issue concerning the UK courts at present is not whether Aspergers constitutes a defence for McKinnon; nor is it the extent to which Aspergers would be a mitigating factor. It is the effect that incarceration - particularly in an overseas country - would have on McKinnon if indeed he does have Aspergers. (Whether he does or does not is not something that will be determined by his mother, by the way.)

I am much happier that these questions will be dealt with in the UK than I would be if they were passed to the US. And like Jon, I am confirmed in that attitude by Jack's hysterical lust for vengeance and Bert's irrational prejudice, founded apparently in some hassle he's had with his PC (by relying on Pentagon Anti-Virus, I suppose).

Regarding Bert's despair that mental health issues are discovered only after crimes have been committed, I'm afraid that's just about as far as the understanding of mental health has got. The health problem is detected only when it has manifested itself in criminal behaviour. Sometimes however the signs are there for all to see, before any crime has been committed, but those who do see just happend to be dumb. Witness Bradley Manning.