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.
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