A MAN made a chilling hoax bomb threat after leaving a bag on a bench close to Carlisle’s cenotaph on Remembrance Day moments after two minutes of silence.

Members of the public, including war veterans and schoolchildren, had gathered at the city centre Greenmarket, close to the Crown & Mitre Hotel, on November 11, 2020, to remember the fallen.

At around 11.05am, just after two minutes of silence, army cadet administrative assistant Paul Newton-Kerr, who was present to lay a wreath, was chatting with a friend.

Carlisle Crown Court heard today, Friday, how the pair saw Benjamin Michael Heaney lay two bags on a bench — one black and one green.

Heaney sipped from a flask he took from his green bag, which he put on his back.

“He left the black bag on the bench and walked at pace, briskly, off through the pedestrianised centre of town towards the HSBC in English Street,” said prosecutor Kim Whittlestone.

Mr Newton-Kerr ran to tell Heaney about the abandoned bag and was left 'in shock' when Heaney twice replied: “It’s a bomb.”

Mr Newton-Kerr asked about the bag a third time, to which Heaney replied: “It’s a camera. Give it to the kids.”

Mr Newton-Kerr backed off, returned to his friend and they agreed police should be called.

Officers attended and were present for some time at the scene, which was cordoned off. “A specialist officer was contacted and attended,” said prosecutor Kim Whittlestone.

“But on the re-attendance of the defendant he confirmed that the bag contained just a camera, and no further police or bomb disposal actions were undertaken.”

Heaney, of Burgh-by-Sands, near Carlisle, admitted a charge of communicating false information with intent.

He had since sought, unsuccessfully, to vacate that guilty plea and, said his barrister, Richard Bloomfield: “He still maintains his innocence of the offence.”

He was sentenced by Judge Simon Medland QC, who heard the defendant had two previous convictions for being drunk and disorderly, and past cautions for criminal damage and outraging public decency.

Judge Medland heard there was a “significant psychiatric background”, and that Heaney had been street-drinking before the hoax.

Stating that his priority was to protect the public from future harm, the judge suspended an 18-month jail term for two years.

He also banned Heaney from seeking any employment aboard for two years and ordered that he be fitted with an alcohol abstinence tag which flags up any intake, for the next 90 days.

Judge Medland told him: “You said at a very sensitive time in the annual calendar that it was a bomb, and that had to be taken seriously and caused very considerable disruption to people who were only trying to undertake a most serious and important matter of public remembrance.”

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