Wrexham Covid vaccine plant: Man guilty of sending suspect package

The Army sent a bomb disposal unit to the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine production plant

A man has been found guilty of sparking a bomb scare by sending a suspicious package to a Covid vaccine plant.

Anthony Collins, 54, from Chatham, Kent, was convicted of posting an article to the factory in Wrexham, with the intention of inducing the belief it was likely to explode or ignite.

The parcel was found at the AstraZeneca plant in January, causing production to stop and 120 staff to be evacuated.

Collins was convicted after a trial at Maidstone Crown Court.

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Bomb disposal teams detonated the device but found no explosive material.

Instead, the package contained a calculator, a garden glove, four batteries, a "yellow biohazard bar", a service wipe and a quantity of paper, the jury heard.

The court also heard that Collins also sent similar parcels to 10 Downing Street and a laboratory in Wuhan in China and the leader of North Korea, Kim Jong-un.

The bomb scare caused 120 people to be evacuated from the site

Wockhardt, a global pharmaceutical and biotechnology company, was providing fill-and-finish services for the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, the final stage of putting the vaccine into vials.

Prosecutor Alan Gardner said: "Mr Collins told the police, in short, that his intention in sending the package to Wockhardt was to help scientists and the government deal with Covid-19.

"The prosecution say it appears that Mr Collins had developed, for whatever reason, some degree of obsession with issues related to the Covid virus and the associated vaccines."

Collins will be sentenced on 24 November and will remain on bail until then.