UK hacking suspect Ryan Cleary held after bail breach

A 19-year-old Briton accused of being part of hacking group Lulzsec is being held in prison after breaching his bail conditions, his lawyer has said.

Ryan Cleary was arrested in June 2011 and banned from using the internet.

He is said to have contacted hacker Hector Xavier Monsegur, known as "Sabu", who had been working as an FBI informant following his own arrest.

Mr Cleary is being held at Chelmsford Prison, in Essex, and is due to reappear before a judge in May.

He had been rearrested on 5 March, a day before the FBI announced that Mr Monsegur had been detained and was working undercover.

News of Mr Monsegur's arrest rippled through the hacking community. The 28-year-old had been a trusted member of the tight-knit Lulzsec group - an offshoot of global hacktivist collective Anonymous.

Mr Cleary stands accused of, among other charges, hacking the website of the UK's Serious Organised Crime Agency.

Mr Cleary, who is from Wickford in Essex, is alleged to have set up a distributed denial of service (DDOS) attack on the site on 20 June.

A DDOS attack typically involves flooding a target website with data, in an attempt to overwhelm it so it cannot serve its legitimate users.

Following his arrest and release on bail, Mr Cleary was instructed to observe a curfew between 21:00 BST and 07:00 BST. When he was able to leave the house, he had to be electronically tagged and accompanied by a parent.

His lawyer, Karen Todner, said in June: "Ryan has last week at court been diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome, which is a form of high functioning autism.

"He will now be provided with the professional support that he needs. His obvious intelligence can now be channelled into a worthwhile pursuit."

Ms Todner added that Mr Cleary was looking forward to going "home to his mum, his cats and his books".