When outlining the mitigating circumstances which led to suspension of the jail sentence, Judge Smith described Electron as being addicted to using his computer `in much the same way as an alcoholic becomes addicted to the bottle'. Boris Kayser had used the analogy in the sentencing hearing, perhaps for the benefit of the media, but the judge had obviously been swayed by his view.
When court adjourned, Electron left the dock and shook hands with his lawyers. After three years, he was almost free of his court problems. There was only one possible reason he might need to return to court.
If Phoenix fought out his case in a full criminal trial, the DPP would put Electron on the stand to testify against him. It would be an ugly scene.
The inmates of HM Prison Kirkham, on the north-west coast of England, near Preston, had heard all about Pad and Gandalf by the time they arrived. They greeted the hackers by name. They'd seen the reports on telly, especially about how Gandalf had hacked NASA—complete with footage of the space shuttle taking off. Some TV reporter's idea of subtle irony—`Two hackers were sent down today' as the space shuttle went up.
Kirkham was far better than Brixton, where the hackers had spent the first days of their sentence while awaiting transfer. Brixton was what Pad always envisioned prison would look like, with floors of barred cells facing onto an open centre and prisoners only allowed out of their cells for scheduled events such as time in the yard. It was a place where hard-core criminals lived. Fortunately, Pad and Gandalf had been placed in the same cell while they waited to be assigned to their final destination.
After ten days inside Brixton Pad and Gandalf were led from their cell, handcuffed and put in a coach heading toward the windy west coast.
During the drive, Pad kept looking down at his hand, locked in shiny steel to Gandalf's hand, then he looked back up again at his fellow hacker. Clearing his throat and turning away from Gandalf's difficult grin—his friend now on the edge of laughing himself—Pad struggled. He tried to hold down the muscles of his face, to pull them back from laughter.
A minimum security prison holding up to 632 prisoners, Kirkham looked vaguely like a World War II RAF base with a large collection of free-standing buildings around the grounds. There were no real walls, just a small wire fence which Pad soon learned prisoners routinely jumped when the place started to get to them.
For a prison, Kirkham was pretty good. There was a duck pond, a bowling green, a sort of mini-cinema which showed films in the early evenings, eight pay phones, a football field, a cricket pavilion and, best of all, lots of fields. Prisoners could have visits on weekday afternoons between 1.10 and 3.40, or on the weekend.
Luck smiled on the two hackers. They were assigned to the same billet and, since none of the other prisoners objected, they became room-mates. Since they were sentenced in May, they would serve their time during summer. If they were `of good behaviour' and didn't get into trouble with other prisoners, they would be out in three months.