A man who caused massive rail disruption across the north of England as he 'contemplated taking his own life' has been jailed for six months.
Peter Myers caused disruption costing an estimated £1m as he dangled his legs over live electrical wires, threw his passport and phone onto the tracks and refused to talk to police.
A court heard how the father-of-two was considering taking his own life as he was upset about his deteriorating relationship with his ex, Leeds Live reports .
All the lines at Leeds station were closed for several hours on May 30 after Peter Myers climbed onto a maintenance gantry at around 7am and threatened to jump onto the tracks below.
Network Rail says his actions resulted in 319 cancellations, 169 part cancellations and delays totaling 171 hours. The disruption also incurred a cost of over £1 million.
No trains ran between Manchester and Leeds for hours, with Northern, Transpennine Express, LNER and Cross Country services all hit.
Mr Myers agreed to come down after specially trained police negotiators arrived at 9.30am and he was detained under the Mental Health Act.
The court heard how he was not found to be suffering from a mental illness but admitted to ‘struggling with a situation relating to his ex partner’. When he was questioned by police he did not comment further.
Mr Myers has more than 30 convictions for a range of offences, including arson, robbery and drunk and disorderly, and in 2017 he was jailed for false imprisonment after he barricaded himself in a house with two children.
David Mackay, prosecuting, said: “That matter would appear to in some way predicate the current situation. That related to his ex partner.”
Mr Myers pleaded guilty to obstructing an engine or carriage by using the railway for an unlawful act, before he was sentenced at Leeds Crown Court on Friday, June 21.
His barrister Richard Reed said: "He fully regrets the inconvenience he has caused to a number of people. It’s important to point out that was never his intention.
"Effectively, he was on the gantry contemplating taking his own life and in his desperate state he gave no thought at all of the chaos and inconvenience of what might follow in his actions.”
He added: “Now that he is in a more stable condition, he is profoundly sorry about all the inconvenience he caused to other people.”
Sentencing, judge Colin Burn said he accepted Mr Myers is ‘struggling to come to terms’ with the breakdown of his relationships with his wife and children, but stated he is ‘not mentally ill’.
He said: "It was a deliberate act you had taken to put yourself in that position.
"I accept you didn’t intend to hurt anybody but that could have been the outcome of this and I don’t just mean yourself, but those who felt it was their duty to rescue you from this position.
He added: "You behaved without any regard to the enormous inconvenience to thousands, if not tens of thousands, of people who were using the rail system at that time."
