Bomb hoax call made to spend time with partner

Exclusive ‘On the face of it this should have been an immediate jail sentence’

A city student wanted to spend the day with his girlfriend – so made a bomb hoax call to get her out of work.

Edward Platt, 24, phoned the shop where his partner was employed on the University of Kent campus, telling an assistant: “Hello mate, I’ve just put a bomb in one of your bins in one of the offices.”

Canterbury Crown Court heard how the shop and other parts of the campus were immediately evacuated because the threat had followed two recent hoax calls from someone else.

But the judge heard that when police checked the telephone number from the alleged bomber it led to an address where Platt was living.

Now the second-year student at the University for the Creative Arts has narrowly escaped going straight to prison for his “juvenile” phone call prank.

Platt, of Ivy Lane, Canterbury, pleaded guilty to making the malicious phone call and was given a 12-month jail sentence suspended for two years.

The court heard that Platt’s girlfriend was a manager at the shop on the campus and they had been discussing ways in which she could stay off work so they could spend time together.

Deputy Circuit Judge Christopher Critchlow asked Platt if he now appreciated the seriousness of what he had done and that he could have been going to the cells. He replied: “Yes – 100%.”

Phil Rowley, defending, said that Platt, who has used can- nabis, ketamine and ecstasy, had been suffering from mental health issues.

The judge told him that when he first read the court papers he thought there would be no alternative to an immediate prison sentence.

He added: “People who make a bomb hoax in today’s climate are risking an immediate term of imprisonment because they cause fear and put people to great inconvenience and causing a loss of income.

“On the face of it this should have been an immediate jail sentence, but in an exceptional act of rare leniency and having read what I have read about you, I have decided to suspend the sentence.”

In September, university cleaner Vanessa Relton was sent to hospital on a court order after she admitted making three fake bomb threats to campus bosses.

The 41-year-old also planted two “realistic” devices containing liquids and wires in the university library.