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?

Speaking as someone who is involved in child protection I suggest you take your own advice and check the facts. To help you get it right, you can find the facts here.

www.gov.uk/disclosure-and-barring-service-criminal-record-checks-referrals-and-complaints

The police can include all relevant information to potential employers - they do not have to exclude cautions if somebody is applying to work with vulnerable people. When you check your facts make sure that you check the whole fact and not just the bit about general crb checks.

Oh and there really isn't any relevance to the fact that you work in child protection. I used to work in child protection myself but left the role due to getting sick of working with a bunch of numpties who couldn't protect any child effectively.

Just for clarification and because I really worry about people working in child protection who lack knowledge of basic checks which should be made for people who wish to work with vulnerable people, I have copied the following form NACRO. I'm sure as you work in child protection you will understand who NACRO are.

What sort of cautions need to be disclosed for DBS purposes?
Simple cautions (18+)
A simple caution is issued by a police officer, usually at a police station, to the individual where they accept responsibility for the offence. If you have received a police caution, you would have had your fingerprints and photograph taken (although this will also happen if you are simply arrested) and you will have signed a document accepting responsibility for the offence. You will not necessarily have been given a copy of your signed caution.

Conditional cautions (18+)
Conditional cautions are issued to adults for certain offences where there is sufficient evidence to charge them and they have admitted the offence. Suitable cases are referred to the Crown Prosecution Service for their agreement to use this disposal. A conditional caution is a caution with specified conditions attached which must be met by the offender.

Reprimands (under 18)
A reprimand is a formal verbal warning given by a police officer to a young person who admits they are guilty of a minor offence.

Final warning (under 18)
A final warning may be issued to a young person who has already received a reprimand, or where the level of offending is deemed higher and therefore a reprimand is inappropriate.

Other cautions or warnings that do not form part of an individual’s Police National Computer record and do not need to be disclosed:

Verbal/street warnings
Harassment warnings
Cannabis warnings
Cautions issued by authorities other than the police (e.g. local council)

Impatientismymiddlename - I know exactly who NACRO are. Try looking at the next question on the page from which you quoted:

As of 29th May 2013, the DBS introduced a filtering system. Please refer to our section on filtering for further information.

Then take a look here and you will see that NACRO agree completely with me. I quote:

On 29 May 2013, an amendment to the Police Act 1997 was implemented that allows certain minor offences to be removed or ‘filtered’ from the certificates. Offences that are eligible to be filtered no longer need to be disclosed for jobs that are eligible for standard or enhanced DBS checks. (my emphasis)

Is my caution/reprimand/final warning eligible for filtering?

If you have received a caution or cautions as an adult (18+), these will be eligible for filtering as long as:
1.the caution was not for an exempt offence
2.six years or more have elapsed since the caution/cautions were issued.

If you received a reprimand/reprimands or a final warning/warnings (under the age of 18), these will be eligible for filtering as long as:
1.the reprimand/final warning was not for an exempt offence
2.two years or more have elapsed since the reprimand/final warnings were issued

Before accusing others of not knowing what they are talking about you really should make sure that you know what you are talking about.

PatriciaHolm - it is patently obvious from the OP that the boy is not a 10-year old who changed his teacher's screensaver when she popped out of the room for 5 minutes. It explicitly says in the OP that he hacked into the school computer system, not that he hacked into a lone school computer. It's also a load of old rubbish the boy wanted to show the school how insecure its systems were - he wouldn't have known exactly how insecure they were BEFORE he tried to hack in. He therefore wanted to FIND OUT how insecure they were, by breaking the law.

Surely, if this boy has any interest in computers and hacking, he will have been aware of all the publicity over Gary McKinnon and the total sense of humour failure of the powers that be when it comes to hacking into computer systems???

I agree, however, that Animavillis should look into all the possible consequences of accepting or not accepting a caution for her ds - bearing in mind that he does appear to have freely admitted to the crime at police interview.

I used to work in child protection myself but left the role

Which is presumably why you aren't aware of the changes that were made to standard and enhanced checks last year following a ruling by the Court of Appeal that the legislation requiring disclosure of all convictions and cautions on enhanced checks was incompatible with the Human Rights Act.

This time last year you would have been absolutely correct. All convictions and cautions appeared on enhanced CRB checks for life. I advised that on various Mumsnet threads at that time. The rules have now changed.

Good job you work in child protection and not youth justice.

Prh47

I have gone and checked these new changes and the police still have power to disclose information that they deem to be relevant, although the test for what is deemed relevant is now more rigorous previously. If a person has received a caution it could therefore be disclosed, so long as it meets the relevance 'test'.
As rabbit stew has pointed out the OPs son has already admitted guilt at the police station so the information could be disclosed at any point in the future if he chooses to work with vulnerable persons.
Please do not advise any children or families that you work with that accepting a caution will not affect their future. Accepting a caution is not an easy option to just make things go away. If a person believes that they are innocent then the only good advice is for them to have a trial and prive their innocence and ask for any information held on file to be deleted if their innocence is proven.

Their leaflet about the changes can be found on the link below. It is very clear about disclosure of relevant information, following the changes that you speak of.
www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/97875/leaflet-england-wales.pdf

out of interest - I have been and asked a couple of IT security guys at work (contractors, bill circa 1K per day) what was the first thing they hacked. Both said - school computer (one in the U.K, one in the U.S). So it seems the OPs son's biggest mistake was getting caught. Hopefully when all this has died down, he will be able, with a bit of maturity, to use his skills for good (or, at the very least, a good income).

if you had said

out of interest - I have been and asked a couple of IT hackers in prison

they would probably have started the same way.

I don't know any hackers in prison - all the ones I know are I.T contractors. Bet there are more of them now with good jobs in the City that there are in prison.

But you're probably right about them all starting the same way. Life's a lottery, I guess.

Even though you haven't come back OP, thanks for posting this. It has reminded me to ask my children's school for a copy of their computer usage policy. Not because I am worried (know) that their networks are insecure and susceptible to hacking by students, but more because I am worried that it is the only place where my son has access to the internet without it being properly locked down or secured. I would be far more worried about schoolchildren accessing inappropriate material from their school computers than being able to hack into them.

police still have power to disclose information that they deem to be relevant

Since the Court of Appeal has already ruled that disclosure of filtered offences is a breach of the Human Rights Act the police would clearly be in breach of the HRA if they disclosed a filtered offence.

Please do not advise any children or families that you work with that accepting a caution will not affect their future

I have not said that. I have simply pointed out that posters who claim it will always appear on DBS checks are mistaken. And I agree that someone who believes they are innocent should not accept a caution. However that is not the case for the OP's son who has apparently admitted guilt.

What exactly has the ops son admitted guilt to?

We have no idea, Ivy. OP dropped and ran. And so the speculation mounted...

gaba

What makes you think that there was a teacher involved?
The head would have reported to the police, and the hack may well have been traced by the internal ICT staff.

You seem to really have an issue with teachers.

Can I suggest a couple of name changes?

prh47bridge -> PatientBeyondBeliefIsMyMiddleName;

Impatientismymiddlename -> UnableToAdmitWhenImWrongIsMyMiddleName.

Prh wrote 'The teachers have not committed any crime. '

Common sense says otherwise. The kid changed a setting on a school computer, and the police get called.... Ask 100% of the population and you will get the same simple answer. Get a life FFS.

This is clearly some petty issue by a teacher who is clearly a whole heap less mature than the teacher who got his panties up in a bunch, because one of his students is better than he is at computers.

For normal people this is the real crime PRH, not your made up one of 'hacking'.

Actually, as the OP has not returned, we do not know the level of hacking involved.
We do know know if he has logged on as himself and managed toaccess the settings to change an image, or if he has hacked into the administratror account and changed settings that way. The latter is obviously, using common sense after all, a far greater issue.

The pupil will almost definitely know he has done wrong - the OP suggests this is the case. He has knowingly and willingly committed something with is not only against the school rules - all pupls usually sign a home school agreement with regards IT - but also one which is a criminal offence.

It will be the HT and/or Governors who will have sought to involve the police, not your stanard teacher or IT technician. It is highly unlikely to be done out of spite of jealousy of IT skills I'm not sure what some ppeople really think goes on in your average school - but actually in almost all cases the staff are normal, law abiding, intelligent adults ith a fair amount of sanity remaining.

Whilst there will need to be a review of the e-safety and computer software, as something has gone wrong - remember that NO system is hack proof entirely. People have hacked into major US government systems - so a standard secondary system is not going to be 100% secure; its just not going to happen.

To put it another way.....

Teacher feels inadequate because kids know more about computers than he does....

Teacher lets his immature insecurities get the better of him (butt hurt). He descends into paranoid confusion.

Calls the police as the red mist descends and takes over his twisted world of computer games and little children....

Do you not think that about summs it up PRH.... Or am I missing something?

*made up crime of hacking"

????

Are you for real? I assume you do know how to read information given, and then apply it to the law as stated on a feew occasions on this thread?

Or are your the OP defiending your boy really? Or are you the boy involved, hacked into mum's MN account maybe?

Gaba has major teacher/LEA related issues. I think it's safe to say she has no legal knowledge.

Given the OP used the word "hacking", and has refrained from returning to explain, we can only assume that is a fair explanation of what occurred. However, given the OPs continued absence, we can only surmise.

gaba
"Prh wrote 'The teachers have not committed any crime. '
Common sense says otherwise. The kid changed a setting on a school computer, and the police get called...."

This shows that you do not know anything about the systems that schools run.

"Ask 100% of the population and you will get the same simple answer. Get a life FFS."

Apart from the percentage that posts here. So not 100%

"This is clearly some petty issue by a teacher who is clearly a whole heap less mature than the teacher who got his panties up in a bunch, because one of his students is better than he is at computers."

Again what teacher none mentioned in the OP, and "HE"?

"Teacher feels inadequate because kids know more about computers than he does....

Teacher lets his immature insecurities get the better of him (butt hurt). He descends into paranoid confusion.

Calls the police as the red mist descends and takes over his twisted world of computer games and little children...."

Again what teacher? He?
Are you the DS? you seem to know a lot about this?

I wasn't going to rise, but ive not read such nonsense in a while so Gaba the truth is....

The teachers are not in control of the IT network
The teachers have no control of decisions made by the school
We have to teach about the Computer Misuse Act (so 14 year olds have more factual knowledge than yourself)

I state this as an ICT teacher (whose background is computing). We don't have any access to the network other than staff access, so we having nothing to do with security. In fact the majority of schools networks are managed by RM - they definitely would not take any form of hacking as a prank.

Common sense says otherwise

Do please tell us what crime the teachers have committed. And don't come up with "wasting police time" again. The teachers can only be guilty of that if they have knowingly made a false report to the police. They have reported that a pupil has hacked into their computers. According to the OP that is a true statement. The teachers are not committing any crime by reporting this to the police. However, the OP's son has clearly committed a crime under the Computer Misuse Act.