Pad thought Wandii's case was on shaky ground. Addiction didn't seem a plausible defence to him, and he noticed Wandii looked very nervous in court just after his plea.
Pad and Gandalf left London after their court appearance, returning to the north to prepare for their sentencing hearings, and to watch the progress of Wandii's case through the eyes of the media.
They weren't disappointed. It was a star-studded show. The media revved itself up for a feeding frenzy and the prosecution team, headed by James Richardson, knew how to feed the pack. He zeroed in on Wandii, telling the court how the schoolboy `was tapping into offices at the EC in Luxembourg and even the experts were worried. He caused havoc at universities all around the world'.4 To do this, Wandii had used a simple BBC Micro computer, a Christmas present costing [sterling]200.
The hacking didn't stop at European Community's computer, Richardson told the eager crowd of journalists. Wandii had hacked Lloyd's, The Financial Times and Leeds University. At The Financial Times machine, Wandii's adventures had upset the smooth operations of the FTSE 100 share index, known in the City as `footsie'. The hacker installed a scanning program in the FT's network, resulting in one outgoing call made every second. The upshot of Wandii's intrusion: a [sterling]704 bill, the deletion of an important file and a management decision to shut down a key system. With the precision of a banker, FT computer boss Tony Johnson told the court that the whole incident had cost his organisation [sterling]24871.
But the FT hack paled next to the prosecution's real trump card: The European Organisation for the Research and Treatment of Cancer in Brussels. They had been left with a [sterling]10000 phone bill as a result of a scanner Wandii left on its machine,5 the court was told. The scanner had left a trail of 50000 calls, all documented on a 980-page phone bill.
The scanner resulted in the system going down for a day, EORTC information systems project manager Vincent Piedboeuf, told the jury. He went on to explain that the centre needed its system to run 24 hours a day, so surgeons could register patients. The centre's database was the focal point for pharmaceutical companies, doctors and research centres—all coordinating their efforts in fighting the disease.
For the media, the case was headline heaven. `Teenage computer hacker "caused worldwide chaos"' the Daily Telegraph screamed across page one. On page three, the Daily Mail jumped in with `Teenage hacker "caused chaos for kicks"'. Even The Times waded into the fray. Smaller, regional newspapers pulled the story across the countryside to the far reaches of the British Isles. The Herald in Glasgow told its readers `Teenage hacker "ran up [sterling]10000 telephone bill"'. Across the Irish Sea, the Irish Times caused a splash with its headline, `Teenage hacker broke EC computer security'.
Also in the first week of the case, The Guardian announced Wandii had taken down the cancer centre database. By the time The Independent got hold of the story, Wandii hadn't just shut down the database, he had been reading the patients' most intimate medical details: `Teenager "hacked into cancer patient files"'. Not to be outdone, on day four of the trial, the Daily Mail had christened Wandii as a `computer genius'. By day five it labelled him as a `computer invader' who `cost FT [sterling]25000'.
The list went on. Wandii, the press announced, had hacked the Tokyo Zoo and the White House. It was difficult to tell which was the more serious offence.
Wandii's defence team had a few tricks of its own. Ian MacDonald, QC, junior counsel Alistair Kelman and solicitor Deborah Tripley put London University Professor James Griffith-Edwards, an authoritative spokesman on addictive and compulsive behaviours, on the stand as an expert witness. The chairman of the National Addiction Centre, the professor had been part of a team which wrote the World Health Organisation's definition of addiction. No-one was going to question his qualifications.