A JUDGE has warned that in the current international climate, people who make bomb hoax calls 'cannot expect any sympathy from the courts'.

Judge James Pyke spoke out at Warwick Crown Court before jailing for 12 months a man who had threatened to detonate a bomb outside Alcester post office.

Adrian Turvey, aged 32, of Crooks Lane, Alcester, had pleaded guilty to charges of affray, failing to surrender to bail and communicating false information about a bomb.

The court heard that about midnight on January 23, police operator Carl Buckley answered a 999 call from a man who claimed to have a bomb in his pocket.

The man, who was using an Irish accent, said he was outside the post office in Alcester town centre, and added: "I've got a detonator.

"I've just got to press the button to blow it up and I'll do it if the police come near me."

The operator kept him talking while officers were sent to the scene and when they arrived, they ordered Turvey to come out of the phone box and when he did so, they realised he did not have a bomb.

Turvey, who had previous convictions including five for sending false phone messages, said he had been drinking but knew what he was doing, said Louise Pierpoint, prosecuting.

Turvey was on bail after an incident in November last year when a store detective in the Stratford branch of Woolworths saw him holding a kitchen knife still in its plastic packaging and told him to hand it over.

Turvey did so, protesting that he did have the money to pay for it but became aggressive and began swearing when he realised the police had been called.

The employee then noticed Turvey, who had been drinking, had a second knife, again still in its packaging, in the waistband of his trousers.

Turvey pulled out the 10-inch knife and started waving it around, threatening to stab the store detective and another employee and to harm himself.

Police arrived and he was backed against a wall and told to drop the knife, which he did.

He was given bail, and was arrested again after he failed to turn up at court in December but was granted bail again, said Mrs Pierpoint.

Darren Whitehead, defending, said a report on Turvey showed he was not suffering from any psychiatric illness but did have learning difficulties and drank when he was bored, which led to him committing the offences.

He said Turvey had only ever had one job and for the last decade had been on benefit, spending most of his time sitting alone in front of the television and can see no future ahead of him other than a bottle of Jack Daniels on the day he gets his benefit payment.

He would come out of the end of a jail sentence and not have changed, said Mr Whitehead, who argues that the alternative was "to put in place a lengthy probation order which will give him structure, guidance and counselling".

But jailing Turvey, Judge Pyke told him: "You made a 999 call stating that you were Irish and had a bomb in your pocket and were going to set it off in a public place.

"You persisted in that as the operator kept you on the line.

"Due to international circumstances there is a great deal of anxiety over public security and those who pour fuel onto this anxiety and put pressure on the public services cannot expect any sympathy from the courts.

"Offences of this kind are so serious that only custodial sentences can be justified."