<font color="lightblue">Leonis,would TAFE run courses a week before Christmas ?? </font>

eer, let's see... government run educational institution... [img]graemlins/uhoh1.gif[/img]
Ok, let's go with my first solution. :D

<font color="lightblue">But then comes another problem - the email address they used wasn`t a TAFE one, it was hotmail. The IP they sent it from was a TAFE one. </font>

Ahh. You got me now. It's possible they had access, but I really wouldn't know. Now we're back to your original question - ISP or hacker?

What about an 'alias IP' - there are programs that hide your own IP sometimes by throwing out another one. It's possible you could give it a specific IP - something like a tafe or uni that wouldn't be blocked if you were caught doing something nasty...

The open hours/info may be somewhere here but I can't be buggered looking through it...

I'm now just guessing stuff...