The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
Bomb threats sparked mass evacuation
Police found chemicals in man’s freezer
A man stockpiled chemicals and bombmaking instructions before calling police and telling them he was going to blow up staff at businesses he had a dispute with.
Patrick McCabe sparked a mass evacuation and forced the bomb squad to carry out a series of controlled explosions at his flat in Dundee following the incident on December 5 last year.
McCabe phoned up Dundee’s police control centre around 11pm and told a call handler he was ex-SAS and had “purchased electrical components, a digital soldering iron and a book on improvised explosives, ammunition and guns”.
He said he was in a dispute with a bank and a telecommunications company and that police had not taken his complaints about them seriously.
As a result he planned to find out where staff at the two institutions parked their cars before planting bombs underneath their vehicles.
Depute fiscal Eilidh Robertson told Dundee Sheriff Court that police attended his flat in Dundee’s Fairbairn Street and found chemicals stashed in his freezer.
Scientists who later analysed the find said they could have been used to create a bomb if further chemicals had been added to them.
Miss Robertson said: “The accused stated on the phone that he had started making bombs and was ‘going to shoot some b ****** s’.
“He claimed he was ex 22nd Special Air Service.
“When police attended he stated he had purchased a book on how to make bombs and bought equipment to make explosives.
“A number of chemical mixtures were found in his freezer and gave cause for concern as they were thought to be precursor elements for an explosive mixture.”
McCabe, 65, a prisoner at HMP Perth, pleaded guilty on indictment to a change of threatening and abusive behaviour at a flat in Fairbairn Street, Dundee, on December 5 last year.
Sheriff Alastair Brown deferred sentence until April 10 for social work background reports and remanded McCabe in custody meantime.