A UK hacker has received an 18-month prison sentence for corporate sabotage.

Stephen Carey, a 28-year-old computer engineer from Eastbourne, Sussex, was yesterday sentenced to 18 months by Hove Crown Court for hacking into a firm's database and modifying information.

He had been hired by sheet metalwork firm RP Duct Work in April last year to carry out essential maintenance and upgrades on the company's database. But after he botched the job the firm was forced to pay a troubleshooter £80 per hour to fix the system.

When RP Duct Work refused to pay Carey he left a back door into the company's network that allowed him to dial straight in from his home computer. From there he deleted a database full of designs, causing an estimated £50,000-worth of damage.

Police arrested Carey and seized his computer. A quick check revealed that he had dialled into the company network at the same time the files were deleted, leaving the court with little doubt as to who was responsible.

A 21-year-old man was also arrested in London this week in conjunction with the now notorious Linux rootkit, T0rn.