A pensioner who spread panic through Liverpool “like a shockwave” when he carried out a bomb hoax at the offices of an insurance company has been jailed for 16 months.
Liverpool crown court heard that David Norris, a former RAF serviceman, had been planning the hoax for five years after an insurance company refused to pay out £168,000 when his boat, the Arctic Penguin, sank in the river Clyde in 1998. He carried out the hoax on the 18th anniversary of his boat sinking.
The city’s commercial district was cordoned off for 16 hours on 8 January this year after 74-year-old Norris walked into a 14-storey office block with a black holdall containing a fake bomb.
Norris presented the holdall to a receptionist at the boat insurance company Groves, John and Westrup with a note telling the firm’s employees to “follow these instructions and no one will be harmed, please vacate the building”.
During a standoff with police, Norris also claimed there were devices at Liverpool Lime Street station and John Lennon airport.
Norris pleaded guilty to the charges, saying he had not intended to cause anybody any harm. His defence appealed to the judge for a suspended sentence due to the defendant’s age and mental state, but Judge Goldstone said Norris was an intelligent man who had known the consequences of his actions would be severe.
“It is also clear you show no remorse although you may regret the cost,” the judge concluded. “The picture is sadly abundantly clear. Mr Norris caused panic and inconvenience that spread through the city like a shockwave from the point where the device was placed.”
Goldstone said Norris’s actions had been the product of a grudge against the insurance company, which “continued to fester and grow like an untreatable disease”.
“He planned for five years and deliberately made the device to look like a bomb misusing the skills and experience he gained while no doubt serving his country with distinction in Afghanistan,” Goldstone added.
He said Norris’s actions had caused the deployment of already over-stretched emergency services, putting other people in need of emergency assistance at risk. “In fact, no fewer than 14 police officers were deployed at a cost of £21,000 to the police, and the fire service suffered the expense of £16,000,” he said.
“Taking into account the level of planning and your motive to expose Groves, John and Westrup, which you fail to realise is a product of your mental state, shows you still pose a significant risk to the companies and their employees.”
, DC I Mark Kameen, of Merseyside police, said: “Mr Norris’s actions that day not only left staff in that business very frightened, but also had a massive impact on neighbouring businesses, when roads were closed, offices evacuated and staff and customers unable to access their places of work or leisure.
“The courts take incidents such as this very seriously and I hope today’s result is a reminder to those who make such hoaxes that they will be caught and dealt with robustly by the police and the courts.”
