Son hacked into the school system- should he accept a caution?

[Animavillis]

Hi, I'm desperately looking for some advise about my son's situation. He hacked into the school computer system and changed a desktop picture. In return, the school reported him to the police. After 3 months, the police decided to give him a conditional caution. Both the police, YOT and the firm which provided a duty solicitor during the police interview are nagging me to sign it. I am hesitant though because this will be on my son's record forever and he didn't do any damage to the school. His intention was to let them know that the system was insecure and easily accessible. What is going to happen if he doesn't sign it?

A young person set fire to my barn and destroyed it. He boasted about it on Facebook. A friend's son saw it, told us, and we reported the boast to the Police together with the name of the culprit. He went to the local grammar school with my friend's son. When the Police visited us, they asked if the barn was insured. It was. The Policeman put his head in his hands and asked me if I knew how much work was involved in taking a case like this (arson) to the Crown Court? It was a big problem apparently. Could he just go round and speak to the lad instead?

So.... The moral of the story is that, yes, OP, your son has been an idiot, but the a Police pick off who is easy/cost effective to prosecute. Your son is an easy target. Keeps the crime resolution figures up with little or no effort. Get a proper lawyer to check it out, but do not be surprised if they take it further. Sadly the local ticking off method only applies to arsonists!

She is there at the interview and gives the "advice" ( often a caution) . She is not unbiased and doesnt always know what is best ( just what is easiest).

My brother is a legal exec and his firm advise their clients (almost) never to accept a caution. A legal exec who advises most people to just accept a caution might not be working in the best interest of the client.
A caution will be recorded as a conviction and will be considered won't after a certain period of time, but enhanced crb checks show spent convictions as well as unspent convictions.
Makes me laugh that schools never phone the police over serious bullying but as soon as their computers security is exposed they are phoning the police.

Will be considered spent after a period of time ^

I used to work in the computer centre of a university many years ago. One of the IT students was caught hacking - similar thing, just to prove he could do it.
They suspended him and all but threw him out. He was barred from ever using the computer facilities again - we had to keep a look out for him. It effectively wrecked his degree.

I don't think some of you are taking this as seriously as the authorities almost certainly do, and have done for years.

Is your son over 18? You can only be cautioned if you are over 18. As a parent, you cannot sign a conditional caution. Only the offender who has admitted the offence can sign. I would get legal advice - not from the duty solicitor - this doesn't appear to be the correct way of dealing with a juvenile offender. IME, juveniles are dealt with by way of Reprimands, Warnings and Final Warnings.

arson is straight to crown court

Op you are getting some really dodgy legal advice on here from some desk top lawyers! A caution is not a conviction never has been never will be. Advice from a barrister or solicitor or a lawyer is advice from a solicitor. They are all solicitors they just took different routes to get there. Your son broke the law and has admitted it. Now you can go and spend a fortune getting advice but the facts will remain the same. The decision is sim

Simple. Do the right thing. (Damn phone)

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/10127220/What-accepting-a-police-caution-means.html

Not technically a conviction, but not that different in reality.

A solicitor, a barrister, a lawyer and a legal exec are NOT all the same and they are not all solicitors! A barrister and a solicitor are different professions and involve different qualifications, different experience as different roles.
A legal exec is not as highly qualified as a solicitor or a barrister generally and again their roles should be different.
A lawyer is a general term as includes anyone who works in the legal profession including those at very different levels.

One of my ds1 HT had a caution because he had been rounded up with several other friends during a uni party, that got rowdy.
It never stopped him being a HT, I think many young people do such things.
he should accept the caution, or if you want to go down the route of second opinions etc, check how long he has to accept or decline before it is escalated.

A caution is treated as a conviction. You have your fingerprints, photograph and DNA taken and your record appears on the Police National Computer (PNC).

At last Tanith I thought I wad the lone voice on here so I gave up. Too many posters a're likening this to a prank.....he broke in and defaced..

I don't think the majority of posters are treating it as a prank; a lot of posters are, however, concerned about schools disproportionate application of punishment. Why are the police not called by schools for severe bullying which can result in severe loss of self esteem for the bullied persons and lead to self harm etc, but they don't hesitate to call the police when their computer system has been hacked?

I think hacking is very serious indeed in some cases. However there are technical requirements under the Computer Misuse Act 1990 that have to be shown before someone in guilty and just to accept a caution with all the adverse consequences which go with that is not something to do without advice from yes a "solicitor". Solicitor is a specialist legal word and you can only call yourself that if you are a solicitor. It is not a general word for all kinds of people who practise law.

This sentence is correct.
"A solicitor, a barrister, a lawyer and a legal exec are NOT all the same and they are not all solicitors! A barrister and a solicitor are different professions and involve different qualifications, different experience as different roles."

However there are some very good barristers who specialise in computer crime (and good solicitor firms and there might indeed be a legal executive out there who spends their life doing computer crime and IT work). The point being made is pay for an hour's advice with one of those people, specialists in computer crime and the 1990 Act.

I can't believe what some people on this thread are saying.

How many of you know how to change a desktop background? Surely almost everyone has at some point? This is not "hacking" in any way. Nor is it "breaking in". It's certainly not remotely comparable to any form of vandalism or defacement. It's changing a desktop background - changing a setting that the system is designed to allow you to change - about as harmful as saying hello and doing about as much permanent damage. The OP's son is probably right to say his user permissions shouldn't permit it, and it was undoubtedly a daft way to point it out, but that doesn't make it wrong and I'm astonished that anyone able to boot up and log into Mumsnet can't tell the difference between this and "vandalism".

(It's rather dubious as to whether it would really qualify as a crime under the Computer Misuse Act. It's neither accessing secured data nor defeating security measures to make the system perform an unauthorised function. Computer misuse law is an ass even by legal standards and urgently needs rewriting, so this is unfortunately not a safe bet in court, but it's fairly clear this isn't what the law has in mind here.)

The school are outrageous for harassing the OP's son in this way. I'd take my kids straight out of such an authoritarian, incompetent institution (sadly fairly normal for school IT, who seem on average to have fewer sysadmin skills than a dead flea and over-ready to get the jackboots out rather than admit it). I'm a bit shocked, too, that the police would waste time and public money on this - they may be obliged to once the school claims to have "been hacked"?

crikey I ould be rather proud of his it abilities

I agree with jellygoose^^

Definitely get other opinions before you sign anything.

How old is the child? I think it's a different ball game if the child is 17 or 12.

My sister and a friend hacked into their school computer aged 11 and printed off the exam papers for that term and sold them to class-mates.

They got a ticking off and a detention from the school - and my parents were told that she obviously had a bright future in IT. This was back in the 1980's though.

I would also be quite proud and make sure he seriously considers computer science as a degree. I work in IT and this kind of thing really pisses me off. Most schools have only a rudimentary understanding of IT and Internet security, employ barely competent (ie cheap) IT staff that leave their systems wide open, and then complain when tech savvy kids (immature and not so aware of consequences by definition) give into understandabe natural curiosity to tinker and mess about. It's not fair.

" used to work in the computer centre of a university many years ago. One of the IT students was caught hacking - similar thing, just to prove he could do it.
They suspended him and all but threw him out. He was barred from ever using the computer facilities again - we had to keep a look out for him. It effectively wrecked his degree.
"

There is a world of difference between a university student (who is in theory and adult) and CHILD hacking a system.

I think that a young teenager changing the wall paper of one computer is childish prank rather than a crime. It is the kind of behaviour to expected in the school. I used to work in a school where the kids used to diliberately turn down the loudspeaker settings to annoy the teachers or play with the monitor settings. (Not in the control panel!)

If he managed to change the wallpaper of an entire network then that is a little more serious. I agree there is a massive difference between logging in as a pupil, accessing the control panel because it has not been locked down and using a piece of software like Back Orfice to hack the server.

OP was desperately looking for advice but has not come back to the thread with any more details.

I hope it's not a post 'n run jobby.

OP hasn't returned and it is a first post under this name at least - so no idea how old the son is. He could be a preteen, a young teen, or even an older over 16y teen. It will make a big difference depending on the age of the son. An older teen of 16, 17y etc is old enough to be in the world of work.

but enhanced crb checks show spent convictions as well as unspent convictions

To repeat what I have already said, a caution would disappear from CRB/DBS checks after 2 years. The courts have forced the government to introduce rules filtering most offences from enhanced CRB/DBS checks after a number of years.

You can only be cautioned if you are over 18

Rubbish. Since 2012 the minimum age for cautions is 10. See the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 s135.

How many of you know how to change a desktop background

I do. You (and others) are focussing on the wrong issue. This is not a question of criminal damage or similar. The issue is unauthorised access to a computer which is an offence under the Computer Misuse Act 1990. What he did when he was there is irrelevant. The crime is the fact he was there at all.

I might know how to change the background on a desktop to which I was logged in. I wouldn't know how to change the background to all the desktops in a school simultaneously - say, to a pornographic picture, for example.