Teenage bomb hoaxer jailed after claims he was ‘groomed’
A BOMB hoaxer who forced 400 schools to be evacuated and grounded a flight claimed he was groomed by hackers while playing online games.
George Duke-cohan, 19, was jailed for three years yesterday for sending thousands of threats from his bedroom.
Anya Lewis, defending, said he was “groomed” and taught to be a hacker after playing Minecraft online. His offences were motivated by a desire for “notoriety” in the hacking community.
Duke-cohan, of Watford, pleaded guilty at Luton Crown Court to three offences of making bomb hoax threats.
He was expelled in 2017 by West Herts College, where he studied IT, after he hacked the website and made a bomb threat that led to an evacuation.
Then, in March this year, he sent more than 1,700 emails to schools, colleges and nurseries, threatening to set off bombs unless money was paid and sparking scores of evacuations.
Duke-cohan was soon arrested, but made a fresh wave of threats while on bail and was arrested and bailed again.
In August, he rang San Francisco airport, posing as a parent, and claimed his daughter had called from an inbound flight from Heathrow to say the plane had been hijacked. The flight was grounded after landing and searched.
Judge Richard Foster told Duke-cohan he had knowingly caused havoc.