Dad in school bomb hoax
AFATHER made ‘bizarre’ hoax bomb threats against a primary school in order to ‘spend more time with his daughter’, a court heard.
Gary Barnes called to police claiming devices had been left at Tonacliffe Primary School in Whitworth - where his daughter was a pupil - on December 9 last year.
More than 320 students and 45 staff members had to be evacuated for several hours as officers carried out a fruitless search of the school.
The 25-year-old made another hoax bomb call against the same school four days later and then later called the school to say he was coming to collect his daughter and was armed with a gun.
Father-of-two Barnes, of Westgate, Whitworth, pleaded guilty at Burnley Magistrates Court to making bomb threats and threatening calls. His case was adjourned for sentence at Burnley Crown Court on May 15 because the magistrates powers were ‘insufficient’.
John Didsbury, defending, said Barnes has an ‘issue concerning his ability to have empathy and to understand fully the consequences of his actions’.
He told the court: “The only motivation appears to be that his daughter attends the school and he wanted to spend more time with her. In some bizarre fashion that communicated into doing this in order to have her back home. That’s not a rational explanation.”
Glen Anderton, prosecuting, told the court how the first hoax bomb call caused a ‘great deal of anguish and upset’ and parents had to be contacted to collect their children from the school.
A second hoax bomb call was made on December 13, however the school remained open after advice from the police.
Barnes then called the police again on January 10 stating that he was on his way to collect his daughter from the school and was ‘in possession of a gun’. He then made a similar call directly to the school on January 19 before ‘laughing after the threat had been made’.
A victim statement from headteacher Joanne Heap said they had ‘thoughts of Dunblane in their minds’ - a reference to the school massacre in 1996.
She said Barnes’s actions had caused ‘significant distress to staff, children and parents’ and had ‘huge financial implications’. The court was told that the pupils were left ‘extremely scared’, missed a day of school and were then not able to enjoy their scheduled nativity play ‘in the same way’.