Day 1

Today's training had two alternating speakers. The first was a former athlete from The Bronx who has chosen to settle in the UK because he's unlikely to get shot if he's ever stopped by police, as ours are not armed. (Try telling that to Jean Charles de Menezes' parents.) His name was Jim Robison - though as we did not see it written down, that may be a mis-spelling. He talked about how to encourage self-discipline on kids, which was fine, and he was very funny, but his talk was really more designed for people who teach kids with behavioural difficulties.

The other speaker was Dr Andrew Curran. He is a paediatric neurosurgeon. He took us through the development of the brain in general, and with reference to Autism in particular.

I took copious notes so that I can brief Det. Goren.

To begin with, Dr Roger Buckman was wrong about the limbic system of the brain. It's flooding the amygdala with dopamine that causes rage.

It was also interesting to note that professions have a high proportion of people with autistic traits, and that accountants are the first to attempt to tackle this (Wally Stevens please note). Even doctors and teachers have autistic membership in the 60-75% range, which considering that one of the major traits is the failure to communicate well is amazing and alarming.