Australian authorities have tracked down, arrested, charged, and sentenced a man who hacked a police radio system and interrupted a police chase at the end of August 2017.

The man, identified as 42-year-old Vaughan William George, received a 21-month prison sentence, yesterday, at a Magistrates' Court in the town of Geelong.

Radio hacker interrupted robbery police chase in August 2017

The man was accused of illegally broadcasting on the police radio frequency between January and October 2017.

The most notorious incident happened in August last year, when George interfered in a police chase, telling police officers to cancel the pursuit. Victoria Police have released a recording of George interrupting police radio communications during the chase, in which he can clearly be heard telling officers to "cancel the pursuit."

George was not involved in the robbery, and police officers captured the robbery suspects a few hours later.

Suspect pleaded guilty, apologized

Local media reported that the judge viewed the actions as "serious and calculated," despite George blaming the incident on a mental health condition and alcohol and cannabis use.

Besides the charges of illegally operating a radio communications transmitter and operating a transmitter to interfere with Victoria Police telecommunications, authorities also charged the suspect of drug and car theft offenses.

George pleaded guilty. Local news outlets report the guilty plea shaved three months of his sentence. George will be eligible for parole after 15 months.

Police arrested George after putting out a call for help online, asking for the public's support in identifying the suspect. A Victoria Police spokesperson told Bleeping Computer that authorities had help from the private sector in identifying the suspect's location in the small town of Buchan, close to the city of Sale, where the interrupted robbery car chase took place.

At the time of the hack, in early September, Australian officials had already contacted local ISP Telstra to install new emergency networks that would run a modern and a more secure digital radio system.