Six months' jail for Bodleian bomb hoaxer (From The Oxford Times)

Six months' jail for Bodleian bomb hoaxer

10:20am Monday 7th May 2012 in Oxford

A man who once told police there were bombs in the Bodleian Library has been sentenced after another hoax.

Steven Thomas was jailed for eight months in 2009 after calling police from a phonebox and telling them to evacuate the world-famous library.

The 37-year-old admitted making another bomb hoax after telling police there was an explosive device at his home.

Thomas dialled 999 on April 2 and told the operator he had assembled a bomb.

Officers raced to the scene but found no such object and Thomas told them he wanted to be arrested, Oxford Magistrates heard on Thursday. He was arrested at his home in Awgar Stone Road, Oxford, and taken into custody where he made a full admission.

Magistrates, who were told Thomas had mental health issues, sentenced him to six months, suspended for 12 months, and ordered him to carry out 200 hours unpaid work.

Defending counsel Catherine Scammell told the court Thomas’ substance abuse and a mental illness was behind the hoax and it had been a “cry for help.”

Presiding magistrate John Howson, in sentencing, said: “We have to treat this sort of offence very seriously. The prospect of a bomb or threat of one doesn’t bare thinking about.”