A ‘COMPUTER geek’ who took down the website of a general election candidate just days before the vote has been told he ‘interfered’ in the democratic process.

A court heard how Bradley Kai Hayden Niblock encouraged a community of online hackers to target the website of Barrow Labour candidate Chris Altree.

The 22-year-old also gained access to the Twitter account of a Barrow secondary school.

He admitted two charges related to computer misuse when he appeared before South Cumbria Magistrates’ Court.

A judge ruled that the offences were serious enough to be sent for sentencing at a crown court.

Prosecutor Peter Kelly told the court that Niblock was involved in carrying out a distributed denial of service attack on the Labour candidate’s website between December 2 and 5 2019.

Louise Gordon, the defendant’s solicitor, told the court: “The defendant is a self-confessed computer geek.

“He spends most of his time in his bedroom on his computer.

“He started a Twitter group called UG Legion - they are an infamous hacking group.

“He wasn’t really UG Legion but was posing as that to attracts likes to his Twitter site.

“Chris Altree came to Mr Niblock’s attention not for any particular reason but at the time it was the general election.”

People from all over the world contacted him through his Twitter account about crashing websites, the court heard.

The hearing was told Mr Altree’s website was down for around a day during the election campaign.

Ms Gordon added: “Mr Niblock didn’t realise, I think, the trouble that he had caused.”

She said Niblock handed over the Twitter account to police to help prevent future crime.

“He’s realised what he did was completely unacceptable,” she added.

“He’s learnt his lesson.”

Other Labour websites were also targeted with cyberattacks using similar methods during the election campaign.

Niblock had also gained access to the Twitter account of Furness Academy.

Explaining the offence, Ms Gordon said: “This was a case of Mr Niblock messing around on his computer.

“He came across Furness Academy’s Twitter account. He put in a password and it worked.”

She said Niblock did not access anything on the social media account and quickly went off it.

In another offence, the defendant also admitted sending menacing messages to a woman he did not know on social media app Snapchat on December 30 last year.

Niblock is to be sentenced at Preston Crown Court on June 21.

District judge John Temperley said: “The offence was carried out a matter of days before the election was due to take place and may well have had some influence, or certainly was an interference in the democratic process.”

Mr Altree lost to Conservative Simon Fell by nearly 6,000 votes.