Teenager dubbed Holly bin Laden af ter teacher sent bomb hoax from her email address
A SCHOOLGIRL was branded ‘ Holly bin Laden’ by other pupils after a teaching assistant framed her for a bomb hoax, a court heard yesterday.
Holly Littlefield, 16, was arrested and held in a police cell for 14 hours after Zoe Gregory, 26, hijacked her email account to issue the threat to blow up the school.
She was too scared to return to school for two days and when she did she was taunted by classmates.
The teenager told the court how after she was arrested she was ‘crying and distressed’ and struggled to sleep in the cell surrounded by ‘people on drugs or drunk’.
Even after she was released on bail, she remained under suspicion for nearly three weeks until checks revealed Gregory was responsible.
Another pupil, Vicky Francis, 15, was also arrested after police were told she had access to Holly’s email account.
Gregory, a married mother- oftwo who said she was suffering from depression at the time of the offence and could not face work, is now likely to receive a lengthy jail term after admitting to communicating false information.
Magistrate Jeanne Heal said the case was being referred to the Crown court for sentencing, telling the defendant: ‘What makes this a worse offence than you might i magine is t hat t wo young girls were in custody for more than ten hours and were interviewed by police.
‘They were also on bail and during that time they must have been under stress. You deserve a greater punishment than we can give.’
Speaking afterwards, Holly’s mother Lesley, 43, said: ‘We are pleased she has admitted it.
‘The girls have been through a horrible ti me at school and hopefully now their classmates will realise the truth.’ Vicky added: ‘I feel sorry for her children because t hey didn’t know what was going on but I think she should go to jail.’
The girls’ ordeal began on February 9, when police officers arrived at Ormiston Victory Academy in Costessey, near Norwich, to arrest them.
Both were fingerprinted, had DNA samples taken and had to pose for mugshots before they were interviewed. They denied any knowledge of the bomb scare and were released on police bail early the following day.
Holly’s home was also searched and police seized the family’s computer and three iPhones.
Prosecutor Lisa Britton told Norwich magistrates: ‘Holly was asked lots of questions about the email. She said in a statement she didn’t know what was going on.’ Vicky had also been left ‘scared and crying’ by the experience and suffered taunts at school, she added.
Officers had acted after Gregory told the vice principal she had found an email in her inbox which warned: ‘There will be a bomb in school on Monday.’
In fact, she had overheard Holly’s email password and used it to access the schoolgirl’s account.
It was only later that police discovered the IP address of the hoax email originated from a computer at the home of Gregory’s father.
Holly said outside court: ‘I was treated like a criminal. One officer asked me, “Do you regret what you have done?” and I said, “I haven’t done anything.”
‘During my interview they told me that if it had been a joke I should j ust tell them. I even thought about admitting it just so I could leave, but I could not do that as I had not done anything.
‘It quickly got right round the school that I had been arrested. When they f ound out i t was because of a bomb hoax, people were running up to me and saying, “Have you got a bomb?”
‘I was even being called “Holly bin Laden”. It was so upsetting because I have never been in trouble with the police before.’
Chris Brown, defending, said his client came up with the ‘ill- conceived and unsophisticated’ hoax while suffering postnatal depression after the birth of her second child. He asked the magistrates to show her mercy and give her a suspended sentence for the ‘dreadful error of judgment’.
But they decided to send the case to Norwich Crown Court where the maximum sentence she could receive is seven years.
A school spokesman said: ‘ The staff member involved has been dismissed and we are doing everything we can to support the students involved. We will not tolerate any action which disrupts the education of students at our school.’
Gregory declined to comment after the hearing.
‘Crying and distressed’