The defence proceeded to present vivid examples of Wandii's addiction.
Wandii's mother, a single parent and lecturer in English, had terrible
trouble trying to get her son away from his computer and modem. She
tried hiding his modem. He found it. She tried again, hiding it at his
grandmother's house. He burgled granny's home and retrieved it. His
mother tried to get at his computer. He pushed her out of his attic
room and down the stairs.
Then he ran up a [sterling]700 phone bill as a result of his hacking.
His mother switched off the electricity at the mains. Her son
reconnected it. She installed a security calling-code on the phone to
stop him calling out. He broke it. She worried he wouldn't go out and
do normal teenage things. He continued to stay up all night--and
sometimes all day--hacking. She returned from work to find him
unconscious--sprawled across the living room floor and looking as
though he was dead. But it wasn't death, only sheer exhaustion. He
hacked until he passed out, then he woke up and hacked some more.
The stories of Wandii's self-confessed addiction overwhelmed, appalled
and eventually engendered pity in the courtroom audience.
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