Drag queen jailed for bomb hoax

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Joel Broad, 19, telephoned the switchboard of the retail giant's Swindon headquarters on September 1 last year and said there was a bomb in customer services.

More than 200 staff were evacuated from the building and roads around the site were closed.

The hoax is said to have cost WH Smith £50,000 in lost revenue and the alert was only lifted after three hours following a search involving police sniffer dogs.

Broad, of Banbury, Oxfordshire, had been employed in the customer services division but his contract had come to an end.

He was offered a job in the firm's Heathrow office but turned it down.

Prosecutor Nicola Jennings said the hoax could have been carried out as a revenge act.

The call was traced by police to the offices of Broad's current employer.

As well as being an office worker Broad regularly performs as drag queen Tammy Tampax in pubs in Swindon, Oxfordshire and Colchester.

Broad sobbed as he was sentenced to 14 months in a youth detention centre at Swindon Crown Court. The court heard that Broad had been handed a community order for a similar bomb hoax in 2005 when he left a note in a prayer book in a church in Oxford.