UK hacker headed back to court after CMA found wanting

By Matt Whipp

Posted on 12 May 2006 at 17:41

A teenager freed under the 1990 Computer Misuse Act (CMA) after being accused of bombarding a former employer with millions of emails is facing a retrial after an appeal decision ruled that the judge had been wrong to clear him.

David Lennon, now 18, was cleared last November by District Judge Kenneth Grant at Wimbledon Magistrates Court when he ruled that the sending of some five million emails in order to take down an email server did not constitute unauthorised access or modification of computer systems, with which he was charged.

However, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) appealed the decision and the Royal Courts of Justice decided yesterday that Judge Grant was wrong to conclude there was no case to answer.

Instead the case will be sent back to the Magistrates Courts for a retrial.

The case highlights the shortcomings of the CMA and its inability to deal with the modern electronic crimes made possible with the advent of the Internet.

There are ongoing attempts to update the Act; the most recent being the publication in January 2006 of the Police and Justice Bill, which amends various acts of Parliament and includes provisions for Denial of Service attacks by creating a new offence of preventing or hindering 'access to any program or data held in any computer'. Anyone convicted of this offence faces a jail term of up to ten years.