A barber’s shop on Spring Bank was also affected
Bomb hoaxer Morgan Richardson(Image: Hull Live)
A young bomb hoaxer caused chaos – and forced a barber’s shop and a McDonald’s restaurant to be hurriedly evacuated – after making alarming telephone calls to the police warning that explosive devices had been left there. A hasty and much more difficult evacuation could have been ordered after a third bomb hoax phone call was made, claiming that a busy Hull transport interchange, near a shopping centre, was being targeted.
But the call handler realised from the “stupid voice” that was being used by the caller that there was highly unlikely to be an actual bomb threat, Hull Crown Court heard. Morgan Richardson, 19, of Alliance Avenue, west Hull, admitted two offences of communicating false information to the police about a bomb on March 1 and another bomb hoax offence on March 6.
Harry Bradford, prosecuting, said that Richardson, also known as James Richardson, telephoned the police from a public kiosk on March 1 to say that there was a bomb at a barber’s shop in Spring Bank. Later that day, there was a similar telephone call from Richardson to claim that there was a bomb at a McDonald’s restaurant in Anlaby Road, west Hull.
The calls were taken seriously and the barber’s shop and the restaurant were both evacuated, although it was not known for how long this happened in each case.
No bomb was found at either place after a search. The bomb hoaxes both claimed that a bomb was on the premises but did not say that they would be detonated.
The telephone box used for each bomb hoax was traced and visited and forensic evidence was found that linked Richardson to them. A search of the area was made.
On March 6, Richardson again used a telephone box to claim in a call to the police that there was a bomb at the Paragon interchange in Hull. The threat was not, this time, taken seriously enough to evacuate the area because doubts about its authenticity were raised from the voice that Richardson used in the telephone call.
The police arrested Richardson at 3.50pm on the same day. “He was fleeing from the area,” said Mr Bradford. “The defendant was linked to these phone boxes through fingerprints on the handset.”
Richardson was arrested but made no comment to all questions during police interview. Bail had been given after each of the incidents. Richardson had no previous convictions.
Cathy Kioko-Gilligan, mitigating, said that, in the first two calls, Richardson claimed that there was a rucksack with a bomb inside it. Richardson did not replace the receiver on the telephone handset and it was left recording until somebody was able to go there.
During the third telephone call, Richardson “put on a stupid voice” and this was the reason that the call handler did not believe that it was a genuine bomb hoax. This was why that there was no evacuation of the Paragon interchange area.
Richardson, a former college student, accepted that the bomb hoax calls were made and told the court: “I will not say that I don’t remember them but I do. I remember feeling angry.”
Richardson, who is not working, was given 20 days’ rehabilitation.
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