Who is Simon Baron-Cohen? Professor Simon Baron-Cohen
Simon Baron-Cohen is Professor of Developmental Psychopathology at the University of Cambridge and Fellow at Trinity College, Cambridge. He is Director of the Autism Research Centre (ARC) in Cambridge. He holds degrees in Human Sciences from New College, Oxford, a PhD in Psychology from UCL, and an M.Phil in Clinical Psychology at the Institute of Psychiatry. He held lectureships in both of these departments in London before moving to Cambridge in 1994. He is also Director of CLASS (Cambridge Lifespan Asperger Syndrome Service), a clinic for adults with suspected AS.
He is author of Mindblindness (MIT Press, 1995), The Essential Difference: Men, Women and the Extreme Male Brain (Penguin UK/Basic Books, 2003), and Prenatal Testosterone in Mind (MIT Press, 2005). He has edited a number of scholarly anthologies, including Understanding Other Minds (OUP, 1993, 2001), The Maladapted Mind (Erlbaum, 1997) and Synaesthesia (Blackwells, 1997).
He has also written books for parents and teachers such as Autism: The Facts (OUP, 1993), Tourette Syndrome: The Facts (OUP, 1998), and Teaching children with autism to mind read (Wiley, 1998). He is author of the DVD-ROM Mind Reading: an interactive guide to emotions (Jessica Kingsley Ltd, 2003) that was nominated for a BAFTA award for Best Off-Line Learning.
He has been awarded prizes from the American Psychological Association, the British Association for the Advancement of Science (BA), and the British Psychological Society (BPS) for his research into autism. For 2007 he is President of the Psychology Section of the BA, Vice President of the National Autistic Society, and received the 2006 Presidents’ Award for Distinguished Contributions to Psychological Knowledge from the BPS. His current research is testing the ‘extreme male brain’ theory of autism at the neural, endocrine and genetic levels.

Extract from Simon Baron-Cohen’s Report on Gary McKinnon.

If Gary were subject to long-term detention in solitary confinement it is my view that it will likely to exacerbate his depression and increase the risk of suicide.

I would also add that in my view Mr McKinnon does not have the social skills to cope with prison. He is unlikely to be able to negotiate his way through a social group of other prisoners in such a way as to be accepted. Nor is he likely to be able to make relationships, and may offend others through expressing his opinions in a very blunt and direct undiplomatic fashion. But as stated under point 2 above, I don’t think it is his social skills that are the main risk factor for his mental health. Rather, his mental health is already very poor from having suffered from anxiety and depression over many years at not knowing what is going to happen to him. Dislocation from the support of his family may be other key risk factors that might exacerbate his already poor mental health.

I have a real concern that he would not survive a term of imprisonment. I am stating this as strong assertion because to put a vulnerable adult who has a disability into a situation of imprisonment when that adult has [stated] that suicide would be preferable, to avoid the suffering that he fears he will experience in a prison, is a decision that should carry with it some responsibility for any consequences. The courts for example, should not be able to claim that they were unaware of the risks prison might pose to Mr McKinnon if he suffers a complete psychiatric breakdown or commits suicide. The courts should have it on their record that if they order him to be detained, it is in the full knowledge that this outcome is a serious and dangerous possibility.
Extract taken from Gary McKinnon Website