Pad's big worry had been this third charge—the one which he faced alone. At his plea hearing, he had admitted to causing damage to a system owned by what was, in 1990, called the Polytechnic of Central London. He hadn't damaged the machine by, say, erasing files, but the other side had claimed that the damages totalled about [sterling]250 000.
The hacker was sure there was zero chance the polytechnic had spent anything near that amount. He had a reasonable idea of how long it would take someone to clean up his intrusions. But if the prosecution could convince a judge to accept that figure, the hacker might be looking at a long prison term.
Pad had already braced himself for the possibility of prison. His lawyer warned him before the sentencing date that there was a reasonable likelihood the two 8lgm hackers would be sent down. After the Wandii case, the public pressure to `correct' a `wrong' decision by the Wandii jury was enormous. The police had described Wandii's acquittal as `a licence to hack'—and The Times, had run the statement.12 It was likely the judge, who had presided over Wandii's trial, would want to send a loud and clear message to the hacking community.
Pad thought that perhaps, if he and Gandalf had pleaded not guilty alongside Wandii, they would have been acquitted. But there was no way Pad would have subjected himself to the kind of public humiliation Wandii went through during the `addicted to computers' evidence. The media appeared to want to paint the three hackers as pallid, scrawny, socially inept, geeky geniuses, and to a large degree Wandii's lawyers had worked off this desire. Pad didn't mind being viewed as highly intelligent, but he wasn't a geek. He had a casual girlfriend. He went out dancing with friends or to hear bands in Manchester's thriving alternative music scene. He worked out his upper body with weights at home. Shy—yes. A geek—no.
Could Pad have made a case for being addicted to hacking? Yes, although he never believed that he had been. Completely enthralled, entirely entranced? Maybe. Suffering from a passing obsession? Perhaps. But addicted? No, he didn't think so. Besides, who knew for sure if a defence of addiction could have saved him from the prosecution's claim anyway?
Exactly where the quarter of a million pound claim came from in the first place was a mystery to Pad. The police had just said it to him, as if it was fact, in the police interview. Pad hadn't seen any proof, but that hadn't stopped him from spending a great deal of time feeling very stressed about how the judge would view the matter.
The only answer seemed to be some good, independent technical advice. At the request of both Pad and Gandalf's lawyers, Dr Peter Mills, of Manchester University, and Dr Russell Lloyd, of London Business School, had examined a large amount of technical evidence presented in the prosecution's papers. In an independent report running to more than 23 pages, the experts stated that the hackers had caused less havoc than the prosecution alleged. In addition, Pad's solicitor asked Dr Mills to specifically review, in a separate report, the evidence supporting the prosecution's large damage claim.
Dr Mills stated that one of the police expert witnesses, a British Telecom employee, had said that Digital recommended a full rebuild of the system at the earliest possible opportunity—and at considerable cost. However, the BT expert had not stated that the cost was [sterling]250000 nor even mentioned if the cost quote which had been given had actually been accepted.
In fact, Dr Mills concluded that there was no supporting evidence at all for the quarter of a million pound claim. Not only that, but any test of reason based on the evidence provided by the prosecution showed the claim to be completely ridiculous.
In a separate report, Dr Mills' stated that: