A FERNHURST teenager who pleaded guilty to a cyber attack on Mumsnet that leaked the details of 3,000 members and led to armed police being falsely sent to the home of the parenting website’s founder, has been spared jail.

David Buchanan, 18, of Vann Road, Fernhurst, admitted two counts of hacking and one of impairing the operation of or hindering access to a computer.

Two of the offences were for hacking the intranet system at his school, The Royal Grammar School, Guildford, in 2014, and stealing the passwords of teachers and fellow pupils, which led to a three-day suspension.

Buchanan, whose father John is a Fernhurst parish councillor, appeared at Guildford Magistrates’ Court last Tuesday. He was described as an “intelligent young man”, who suffers from Asperger’s syndrome.

The court heard Buchanan used computer script he had created in July last year, to access the account details of 3,000 of the millions of Mumsnet members. He handed the script to hackers, which led to members’ details being posted online, and a string of hoax calls to the Metropolitan Police about bombs, shootings and kidnappings.

The Met received an anonymous phone call from someone reporting Mumsnet chief executive Justine Roberts had been murdered and her four children taken hostage by a gunman. Eight police officers were dispatched to her London home in the middle of the night, five armed with machine guns, and accompanied by police dogs.

Guildford magistrates heard Buchanan was being prosecuted for creating the computer script and not for the malicious actions taken.

He was ordered to carry out 200 hours unpaid work.

Sentencing him, magistrate Michael Morritt said: “The offences in question were not planned directly by yourself but it was, for your part, sophisticated, as confirmed by the police cyber control unit investigation officers.

“Your school reports show you are intelligent young man. There is no evidence to show if you don’t know the difference between right and wrong.

“Asperger’s does not excuse those actions. It does go some way to explain those actions.”