Two years for airport bomb hoaxer

The mobile phone call sparked a full-scale alert

A teenager who made a hoax bomb call to Heathrow Airport just four days after the terror attacks in the US has been ordered to spend two years in detention.

Police said the actions of 18-year-old Alexander Farrar Walters of Brecon, mid Wales, caused a major security alert which could have closed one of the world's busiest airport.

The Russian-born teenager, who made his home in Wales last year, told police he had made the call on his mobile as "a joke" while out walking his dog on 15 September.

Walters' SIM card was found discarded in a bin

Judge John Curran at Merthyr Crown Court said Walters had to spend two years in a young offender's institute for the distress he caused.

At a hearing last week - adjourned for psychiatric reports - the court heard how Walters made the joke call four days after two passenger jets crashed into New York's World Trade Center twin towers.

Walters told the exchange operator at the airport: "There's a bomb at Heathrow Airport - you've got exactly one hour."

The operator was said to be "concerned and extremely distressed" at the call because it followed so soon after the US terrorist attacks.

An immediate risk assessment was carried out, but officials decided not to close the airport.

Rubbish bin

The call was traced to a mobile telephone belonging to the Coleg Powys student, who was walking near his home at Trallwn, Brecon.

Soon after, police discovered the phone in a tin of sweets while the SIM card containing a log of calls was discarded in a rubbish bin.

At last week's hearing Walters said he made the call "to see what the reaction would be."

"I did not think there would be such a reaction. It was just a joke - just a silly joke."

In the present climate, there are few more insidious or antisocial offences making it more difficult for people to identify hoaxes from genuine threats

Judge John Curran

He admitted making the hoax call but claimed he had not expected the act to become so serious.

But sentencing him on Friday, the judge told him: "For some years, we have had to live under the shadow of terrorist outrages and matters reached a new grim point when an act of mass murder was carried out at New York."

He said he sentenced Walters to discourage other youths from copycat hoaxes in the present climate, causing distress such as that suffered by Heathrow staff.

"They had to consider closure causing untold delay, disruption and inconvenience or identifying it as a hoax.

"In the present climate, there are few more insidious or antisocial offences making it more difficult for people to identify hoaxes from genuine threats."