Andrew Lakeman, the former Jagex content developer players knew as Mod Jed, was sentenced at Cambridge Crown Court on Thursday, September 3. He pleaded guilty to unauthorized computer access with intent to commit other offences, theft by employee, concealing or converting criminal property, and acquiring criminal property. The court handed down a three-year prison term suspended for two years, 150 hours of unpaid work, and a 25-day rehabilitation activity requirement. Proceeds of Crime Act work to claw back the money is scheduled through February 2027.
Lakeman is 32. He previously used the name Jed Sanderson. He joined Jagex in November 2015 as a content developer at the company’s Cambridge Science Park offices. Jagex makes RuneScape and Old School RuneScape. He had no authorized access to player accounts.
Cambridgeshire Police and local reporting say Jagex’s player support team spotted odd account-recovery traffic in May 2018. High-value gold and items were leaving accounts. The activity paused, then came back later that year. Staff concluded the person doing it knew details a random outsider would not. Jagex ran an internal hunt, tightened recovery, and changed firewall rules without a company-wide memo so the person inside would not get a warning. The trail pointed at Lakeman’s devices and home address.
He was questioned. He denied it and said his own account must have been compromised. Jagex fired him and sent the file to Report Fraud, then to Cambridgeshire Police in 2019. Officers arrested him in July 2019. Device and account searches showed more than £364,829 in cash from cryptocurrency dealers. Messages to his wife talked about making a lot of money before leaving Jagex and about high-value RuneScape accounts worth tens of thousands of pounds.
The Court of Appeal file in R v Lakeman [2026] EWCA Crim 4 put numbers on the take. The Crown said he reached 68 player accounts and stripped about 705 billion gold pieces. Jagex put the real-world trading value at £543,123 in Bitcoin and cash. Police and the Cambridge Independent summarized the black-market sales as more than £300,000 and the banked cash as £364,829. Those figures sit in the same case. They are not three separate hauls.
A first-instance judge had ruled the gold pieces were not "property" under the Theft Act 1968. The Court of Appeal flipped that in January 2026. Lord Justice Popplewell wrote that the gold pieces are assets with an ascertainable money value, traded inside and outside the game, and capable of dishonest dealing that strips the owner of use and value. The Supreme Court refused Lakeman permission to appeal that point in June 2026. After that, the theft count could stand. He pleaded guilty. Thursday’s sentence followed.
Detective Constable Andrew McKeane, who investigated the case, said Lakeman knew it was wrong and that hundreds of thousands of pounds from in-game items is still theft. He thanked senior Crown Prosecutor Samantha Woolley and prosecution counsel Sarah Gaunt for pushing the property question to the Court of Appeal. McKeane said virtual worlds are growing and the courts will have to keep up.
Old School RuneScape’s rules ban selling gold for real money. The market exists anyway. That black market is what turned staff-access abuse into a six-figure cash pile and a reported crime. Players have spent years watching gold sellers and compromised accounts. This one was an employee with a moderator name.
Lakeman is not going to prison unless he breaches the suspended term. Unpaid work and the rehab days are the immediate punishment. The February 2027 POCA date is where the cash fight continues.
Jagex has not posted a fresh statement in the sentence write-ups beyond the original cooperation with police. The company already banned real-world trading in its terms. The court still treated the gold as property belonging to Jagex on the indictment.
Are you surprised he walked with a suspended term after £300k-plus in sales, or did the Court of Appeal ruling matter more than the jail time? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.