Man jailed for Tesco blackmail plot

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Philip McHugh, of Milton Avenue, Clitheroe, Lancashire, sent 76 letters threatening to bomb branches of the supermarket chain across Britain last summer. McHugh, 52, also threatened to contaminate Tesco products if they refused to comply with his demands for money.

The judge at St Albans Crown Court said McHugh was guilty of a sustained and serious effort to extort money from the retailer.

McHugh, who was addicted to online gambling and had debts of £37,000, began his campaign last May with a series of letters to Tesco offices in Dundee, threatening to contaminate food in Tesco stores unless he was paid £100,000.

When this tactic failed, he sent a series of increasingly aggressive letters to the supermarket chain's headquarters in Hertfordshire, culminating in a demand for £200,000 to stop him putting caustic soda in yoghurt sold in the store.

In July last year McHugh, who had been unemployed since leaving a job as a delivery driver for a charity in December 2006, stepped up his campaign, sending hoax bomb warnings to 76 Tesco supermarkets, warning of what he called "Black Saturday". He said bombs would go off at the stores on Saturday July 14.

As a result of the warnings, 14 Tesco superstores around the UK were closed, costing the chain an estimated £1.4 million in lost revenue. Branches in London, Clitheroe, Port Talbot, Grimsby, Bury St Edmunds, Kirkcaldy, Ashby de la Zouche, Glasgow and the West Midlands were all affected.

Due to delays in the postal service, the remaining 62 letters were not received until after the bomb threat had expired. Had these stores also closed, the company's losses would have exceeded £10 million. After the bomb hoaxes, McHugh wrote to Tesco executives demanding £200 a day, and an overall figure of £1 million.

"I'm absolutely desperate and blood will flow if you do not co-operate," he wrote. "And I WILL destroy your business and others will pick up your customers."

In November at St Albans Crown Court McHugh pleaded guilty to three counts of blackmail and two of carrying out a hoax bomb threat.