Grandfather Put Fake Bomb At Job Centre Because His Benefits Were Cut

A benefits claimant created a fake ticking time bomb and put it outside a job centre after his payments were cut.

William Harkin, 54, was jailed for two years for making the device with an analogue clock, wires, and tape, which he left outside offices in Middleton, Greater Manchester.

He then phoned police pretending to be a concerned passer-by – a day after the 18th anniversary of the Manchester bombing by the IRA.

He confessed to the crime just hours after the incident in the early hours of June 16 – claiming he was ‘upset’ that his state handouts were to be halted because he had missed a number of college courses designed to help him get a job.

He claimed it was an act of ‘abject stupidity and foolishness’ and he had originally intended to stage a rooftop protest and unfurl a banner over the building before he changed his mind. He admitted making a hoax bomb.

Passing sentence Judge Leslie Hull told him: ‘There was a sense of grievance towards the Department for Work and Pensions for the suspension of your benefits without, what you thought, was just cause.

‘What was said about you was that this was a gesture you were making towards them. A gesture it may have been but none of the features which are dealt with justify what you did.’

Harkin had a conviction in Northern Ireland for providing information to a terrorist as part a spate of offences in the early 1980s.

Prosecutor David Lees said: ‘At about 5am officers attended and located the phone box from which the defendant had made the telephone call and they found him. He pointed out where the device was and they found a brown paper package. Poking through was a full clock fires with wires coming out.

‘He said he had been on state benefits for some time and had been on various courses to assist him. He had missed some of these courses and therefore the benefits agency had written to him indicating that his benefits were going to be suspended for three months.

‘As a result he built the package with the intention of upsetting those who had been there.’

In mitigation defence counsel Joseph Hart said Harkin had suffered since his mother and wife had died and he felt he had been ‘messed about’ by the benefits agency.

Source: Metro.

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