Lifeboat hoax caller jailed for four months
Crew sent on ‘wild goose chase’ looking for stricken yacht on loch
A HOAX caller has been jailed for four months after he sent a lifeboat crewed by seven people on a “wild goose chase” after he claimed a yacht was in trouble on a loch.
Alasdair Maxwell Munro, 55, was sentenced at Portree Sheriff Court after he was found guilty of making a hoax call to HM Coastguard which cost the emergency services thousands of pounds to investigate.
The RNLI Mallaig lifeboat with a crew of seven volunteers spent nearly three hours at sea in worsening weather conditions at night in a bid to find a yacht which Munro had claimed was in trouble in Loch Hourn.
However, no yacht was found, no one was in need of help and Mr Munro’s actions landed him in court where he was found guilty after a two-day trial.
Sentencing, Sheriff James Scott told widower Mr Munro, of Isle of Skye: “To be responsible for a false call leading to a lifeboat to be launched in weather conditions far from ideal is a very serious matter.”
The trial heard that Munro was laughing when he made the malicious alarm on October 30, 2013, and he also laughed in court which led to a reprimand from the sheriff.
The cost of the false call and the subsequent criminal proceedings runs into tens of thousands of pounds.
Munro told the sheriff: “All I can do is to apologise for the inconvenience that has been caused.”
However, the RNLI said his reckless actions had wasted the time of a volunteer crew and wasted money donated by fundraisers. The charity also had to be represented during the court proceedings and it had taken several attempts before the case was finally heard, nearly two years after the hoax call.
Spokesman Richard Smith said: ‘The charity hopes that the sentence handed down by the sher- iff leaves people in no doubt that the courts take hoax calls extremely serious. This was a highly irresponsible act by Mr Munro. Our volunteer crew at Mallaig were sent out on what was effectively a wild goose chase.
“Our resources were spent on a malicious call and, if a real distress call had been given elsewhere, then we would have had difficulty in attending it and the life of someone in genuine distress could have been at risk.
“Our volunteers selflessly gave up their time to help someone they thought was in trouble and this incident cost the charity valuable funds.”