Bomb hoaxer who shut railway stations jailed

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David Treharne, of St Pancras, succeeded in shutting a string of mainline railway stations and targeted the Houses of Parliament in a month-long campaign of fake bomb warnings.

The 51-year-old, who is unemployed other than doing volunteer work for the Samaritans, was sentenced at Southwark crown court after being convicted last month of making 11 bomb hoax calls from phone boxes around London.

He was finally tracked down by the use of CCTV and a voice expert who matched his voice to recordings.

During his trial the jury were told that after making a 999 call, he would wait for the "reaction" he wanted.

On at least one occasion the mainline terminal at Paddington had to be evacuated and trains halted. However, his favourite target was King's Cross, near his home in Argyle Street. He sent emergency services to the station on eight occasions, five of which were on successive days. He also targeted Parliament and a hotel.

He had denied 11 counts of communicating false information between 22 December 2006 and 20 January last year. Today he was jailed for two years and nine months.

Sentencing Treharne, Judge Deborah Taylor said: "These calls no doubt caused distress and fear to passengers ... it was only due to the professionalism of police and station staff that disruption was minimised."

Detective Constable Mike Ganly from the British Transport Police said: "Hoaxers waste considerable police time and divert resources from other duties. As in this case, we will always thoroughly investigate bomb hoaxes and push for the maximum penalty against those involved." He added: "BTP has a tried and tested system in place for dealing with them so as to cause minimum disruption while ensuring public and staff safety."

The BTP said it had received more than 10,000 threats to various locations since 1991, but fewer than 70 threats forced station closures. Of those incidents 35 were deemed as " positive", where an explosive device was found or a controlled explosion carried out.