Hull Man Jailed For Bomb Hoax

8 June 2012, 16:48 | Updated: 30 March 2016, 13:50

A man who told police his online girlfriend was going to blow up a plane after she deleted him from her Facebook has been jailed for 16 weeks.

38 year old Stuart Bingham, drank up to four litres of cider before calling 999 and reporting that a woman was boarding a plane with a bomb in America.

Police investigated but quickly confirmed the report was a hoax and arrested Bingham at his home in Blandford Close, Bransholme, Hull.

He admitted sending a grossly offensive, indecent or menacing message by electronic communication at a court hearing at Hull Magistrates' Court in May.

District Judge Frederick Rutherford said: “You decided, under the influence of alcohol, to make an emergency call to the police to tell them of a bomb threat with specific details in respect of the flight path and what was going to happen to the plane.”

James Gelsthorpe, prosecuting, said Bingham made an emergency call to Humberside Police and told them a woman was getting on a plane from Detroit to Miami Fort Lauderdale with “something on her she should not get on the plane with”.

Mr Gelsthorpe said: “He said it was a 'f***ing bomb'. He said 'She's going to blow the plane up'.''

Bingham told police he spoke to the woman, named as Lawrie Punt, from Ontario, Canada, every day through the online call system Skype and also communicated with her by Facebook and text messages.

Mr Gelsthorpe said Bingham told police he thought Ms Punt was “doing something” because she deleted him from her Facebook account.

Bingham, who is unemployed and suffers from anxiety and depression, received a caution last year for wasting police time after making around 30 nuisance 999 calls.