London - An autistic teenager was on Sunday night accused of masterminding a global internet hacking spree from his bedroom in the Shetland Islands.
Jake Davis, 18, was held as part of an international crackdown on hackers who have wreaked havoc on the CIA, Sony and News International.
Scotland Yard detectives said he used the nickname Topiary to act as a spokesman for outlaw hacking groups Anonymous and LulzSec.
He is suspected of giving a series of cloak-and-dagger interviews to US television networks via the internet, in which he boasted of always being “one step ahead” of police.
Police hired a private aircraft so they could arrest him at his home in Lerwick on the remote Shetland Islands north of Scotland.
Davis will appear at City of Westminster magistrates’ court on Monday charged with offences under the Computer Misuse Act. One charge alleges that he orchestrated an attack which brought down the website of the Serious Organised Crime Agency. On Sunday night his grandfather Sam Davis, 76, said the raid was “dramatic and ridiculous” and insisted police have got the “wrong man”.
He said: “I just don’t see him getting involved in anything criminal, he is not politically minded and I do not know why he would want to be a computer hacker. I am certain that if he was involved in something, which I don’t think he was, then he did not know what he was doing.”
Davis and his brother Josh, 17, were the third and fourth people in Britain to be arrested as part of the crackdown. Dozens of raids have taken place in Britain, Holland and the US Josh, who moved to Spalding, Lincolnshire, with their care worker mother Jenny last month, was released without charge.
Anonymous and LulzSec have laid siege to organisations including Soca, the CIA, PayPal, Sony and News International.
Last month they attacked the website of The Sun, publishing a false story claiming Rupert Murdoch had died and his body had been found in his “famous topiary garden”.
Mr Davis said his grandson has spent the past year off school, speaking to friends in the US online and being tutored at home once a week. He added: “Jake is a quiet boy who doesn’t really mix with the other islanders. He hasn’t got a lot of friends, although he doesn’t mind talking to them on the internet.”
Nikki Finnie, 17, who went to school with Davis, said he was so badly bullied that he left and retreated into a computer fantasy world.
The main Twitter account for LulzSec fell silent hours before Davis was arrested. On his personal account, Davis wiped all of his messages except one: “You cannot arrest an idea.” - Daily Mail