Men jailed for poisoned vodka post

Wayne Cook, 46, and Steven Robinson, 42, were each sentenced to six years in prison at Manchester Crown Court.

The pair, who were neighbours in Robert Street, Tyldesley, Greater Manchester sent two miniature vodka bottles filled with lethal concentrations of caustic soda to public figures as part of a campaign by the Scottish National Liberation Army (SNLA) to force the UK Government out of Scotland.

One of the bottles was accompanied by a note which threatened to kill English people "at random and with no discrimination or compunction" and to poison England's water supply.

Unemployed father-of-three Cook - an Englishman - was last week found guilty under anti-terror laws of two counts of using noxious substances or things to cause harm and intimidate.

Robinson, a Scot, pleaded guilty to the charges at an earlier hearing.

Passing sentence, Judge Robert Atherton said: "In summary, what you did was to prepare packages into which you placed bottles, miniature vodka bottles, from which the vodka was removed and caustic soda placed.

"You then sent them through the post. One was sent to a lady, Mrs Myra Philp, a journalist in Scotland and another to a councillor, John Wright, a councillor with Blackburn with Darwen Council.

"The reason you did that was in furtherance of a campaign by a group calling themselves the Scottish National Liberation Army, an organisation which works in cells of two, an organisation set with its aim of separating Scotland and England and English interests in Scotland being expelled.

"People are entitled to their views - they are not entitled to the sort of actions which that organisation carries out."