Avril Haines's unusual backstory makes her an unlikely chief of US intelligence

The former plane enthusiast, lawyer and judo brown belt owned a cafe that staged erotica nights and worked for President Obama

Avril Haines, who now oversees all 16 US intelligence agencies, is unlike any of the spies who came before her, and not just because she is the country's first female director of national intelligence.

She is also the first intelligence chief to have to make an emergency landing while trying to cross the Atlantic in a tiny plane; the first to take a year out in Japan to learn judo; and surely the first anywhere in the world to have owned a cafe-bookstore that staged frequent erotica nights.