Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour has stepped in to pay for Gary McKinnon's psychiatric treatment.

The support came after the Asperger's syndrome sufferer, who faces the threat of deportation to the US for hacking US military systems in 2001 and 2002, became a victim of budget cuts by the London NHS Trust, the Sunday Express reports.

McKinnon, 45, has been under the care of Professor Jeremy Turk, an autism expert (Asperger's syndrome is an autism spectrum disorder) who fears that McKinnon may become a suicide risk if he is extradited to the US to face trial and likely imprisonment. Gilmour, a long-time supporter of mental health causes, stepped in to help McKinnon when funding was withdrawn.

Home Secretary Teresa May is reviewing medical evidence that long-running extradition proceedings against McKinnon ought to be abandoned because of concerns about the UFO-hunting hacker's fragile mental state. ®