Teen jailed over schools bomb hoax

ATEENAGER has been jailed for making bogus bomb threats to hundreds of UK schools and sparking an airport security scare.

George Duke-Cohan, pictured, twice targeted UK and US schools with hoax messages, before phoning in a fake report of a hijacked aircraft.

The 19-year-old, of Watford, emailed Marlborough College

– the Wiltshire school attended by the Duchess of Cambridge – and referred to the Columbine High School shooting.

He was jailed for three years by Judge Richard Foster at Luton Crown Court yesterday.

The judge said: “You knew exactly what you were doing and why you were doing it, and you knew full well the havoc that would follow.”

The teenager pleaded guilty to three counts of making hoax bomb threats in September.

Duke-Cohan, who was doing an IT course, first created panic in March 2018 when he emailed thousands of schools in the UK, threatening to set off a bomb if payment was not made.

Police arrested Duke-Cohan days later, but he was able to send more emails to schools in the US and UK while under investigation in April. He was arrested again and released on pre-charge bail with conditions that he did not use electronic devices.

Before long his name was in the frame for a third hoax, regarding a bogus tip-off that hijackers had taken over a United Airlines flight from Heathrow to San Francisco.

He was arrested a third time at his home in Mutchetts Close, Watford, on August 31 this year.