McKinnon, who suffers from a form of autism, could spend life in prison if convicted by a US court of gaining access to 97 computers in 2001 and 2002 in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks.

 

His mother Janis Sharp said: "No other country in the world would so readily offer its citizens to the US as sacrificial lambs merely to safeguard a 'special political relationship'."

"To use my desperately vulnerable son in this way is despicable, immoral and devoid of humanity," she added.