Bomb hoaxer who targeted UK, US and Canada is jailed

A MAN who carried out a campaign of bomb hoaxes against targets in the United States, Canada and the UK has been jailed for more than four years.

Andreas Dowling, 24, made a total of 107 bomb hoaxes, including 75 in the UK, in which he claimed to have planted bombs containing dynamite, sarin gas and radiation at schools and police stations and said he would shoot any survivors with assault rifles.

Simon Laws QC, prosecuting, said Dowling used sophisticated techniques, such as fake Twitter and email accounts and text to speech software, to hide his identity from law enforcement officials in the UK and North America.

“In 2014, there was an outbreak of bomb hoaxes in the US and Canada, targeting schools, police departments and the Super Bowl,” Mr Laws said. “As was to be the case in the UK, a feature of the North American hoaxes was the repeated targeting of the same institutions. The threats used were chilling and intended to be taken seriously.

“He revelled in his ability to evade capture. It was not until US investigators discovered a group of fellow hoaxers that his identity was revealed.”

Exeter Crown Court heard that Dowling accepted making the US bomb hoaxes but claimed he was part of a wider group in the UK, known as The Evacuation Squad, and did not make any calls directly.

The court heard Jewish schools were “over-represented” as targets in the British hoaxes and were selected “based on racial or religious identity of the students”.

Mr Laws said threats to the Jewish schools referred to bombs going off at 4.20pm, which was a reference to Adolf Hitler’s birthday of April 20.

“It is an occasion of celebration in far Right circles. It was only the Jewish schools that this unusually precise time was given,” he said.

At a previous hearing Dowling, of Carew Terrace, Torpoint, Cornwall, admitted 30 counts of communicating false information with intent between October 2014 and February 2016.