WiFi poacher snared in "once in a decade" swoop

Yahoo news reports another arrest for hijacking someone's broadband connection.  The (alleged) offender was sitting on a garden wall using a laptop to enjoy the householder's unwitting largesse.

Granted - this is not without precedent: back in April we commented on two similar arrests.  What marks this out as a forensic milestone  however is that the perp had the almost implausibly unlikely misfortune to be nabbed by not one, but two Community Support Officers - the very stalwarts who were reported this week to each average only one solved crime EVERY SIX YEARS.

So, back to the station for a well-earned rest and a bacon sandwich.  Can any neighbourhood crims - be they cyberthieves or plain old burglars - now expect to go about their business without interference for some time to come?

Comments

[Laurence Eastham]

I am not at all sure that there was an offence. Where is the element of dishonesty, an essential ingredient in the offence, in sitting on a garden wall? How do you intend to avoid payment, another essential ingredient, of the s. 125 offence, if you are using a pre-paid broadband connection (which most are)?
There may have been relevant admissions (the fool!) but how does the innocent distinguish between a freely available wi-fi hot-spot and a home wi-fi that is unsecured and has leaked? And why does the said innocent have to?

[Deryck]

I'll think about this while I'm on holiday - maybe.

One point I would make as an old criminal courts lawyer is that the test for dishonesty as laid down by the case of R v Ghosh (is this still good law?) was whether the average person would consider the conduct dishonest - that might be the case here (depending on the particular facts / admissions. The pre-payment issue could be relevant if the subscriber's broadband charges depended on usage volumes, as this could be like abstracting their electricity.

Not the sort of case the average harassed Duty solicitor would welcome after an all-nighter ministering to the nocturnal crime set...