Man jailed over series of hoax bomb threats

Paul Fisher was sentenced to five years and two months in prison at Leicester Crown Court on Monday

A man who threatened to "blow up" a Heathrow Airport terminal in a series of hoax bomb threats has been jailed.

Paul Fisher, of St Peters Path in Oadby, Leicestershire, claimed to have placed bombs at locations in London, Birmingham, Hull and Lincolnshire on 5 May.

Judge Timothy Spencer KC told Leicester Crown Court it gave him "no pleasure" to jail Fisher – who had "well-documented" mental health problems – but said his offending was "disturbingly serious".

The 61-year-old admitted a series of charges in May, including eight counts of a bomb hoax, and was sentenced at Leicester Crown Court on Monday to five years and two months in prison.

The court heard Fisher called police at 10:41 BST on 5 May and threatened to blow up The Ritz Hotel in London.

He then threatened to rob a bank in Lincolnshire 15 minutes later - both were identified as hoax calls.

Then, on what Judge Spencer KC said "must have been on a different number", Fisher called Lincolnshire Police twice and said he had planted a bomb outside a pub in Lincoln and another in Boston.

When asked by a call handler why he had placed the bomb outside the pub in Boston, he said he "felt like it", Eunice Gedzah, prosecuting, told the court.

Miss Gedzah said the Metropolitan Police received a number of calls from Fisher under false names on the same day, when he claimed he had placed bombs at Heathrow Airport, St Pancras railway station and near Scotland Yard.

'Enormous waste'

The court also heard West Midlands Police received a call from Fisher that he was going to bomb Birmingham Airport and that he had a gun and was going to "open fire and kill people".

The threat was declared a firearms incident, with police and a dog unit being deployed.

Fisher also told Humberside Police he had placed a bomb outside a police station in Hull and that he had a pistol.

Police were deployed and the defendant was not found, the court heard.

He was later arrested at his home address in Leicestershire.

James Bide-Thomas, defending, said the calls were an "enormous waste" of public time and money, but added the defendant had told him he was "very sorry".

Mr Bide-Thomas told the court Fisher has bipolar affective disorder, for which he was being treated, and also suffered auditory illusions.

He told the court when Fisher was heavily medicated, he struggled with how it made him feel, and the offending occurred when he was tempted to not take the medication.

The court heard since 2006, there had been "frequent interventions" from medically-qualified people and crisis teams, and he had previously done a "number of positive things" in his life before his mental health deteriorated.

Judge Spencer KC said: "This is a sad and sorry case, I actually have a lot of sympathy for you. I think you've had a sad, lonely and largely wasted life."

Det Con Kevin Sharkey, from Leicestershire Police, said: "The impact hoax calls can have on the emergency services, businesses and the public are vast.

"Such mindless actions interrupt our infrastructure and end up costing significant amounts of money."

In addition to the eight counts of a bomb hoax, Fisher also admitted charges of causing wasteful employment of police and threatening to destroy or damage property.