'˜Breaking Bad' chemist jailed

Dozens of homes in Bridlington, East Yorkshire, were evacuated in August after police and the army bomb disposal unit raided Gert Meyers’s property. Meyers, 55, pleaded guilty earlier to selling a non-medicinal poison and was jailed at Hull Crown Court today. A Crown Prosecution Service spokesman said the defendant had been selling chemicals online, which could have been used to make explosive devices.

He stopped selling the materials after police warned him he needed a Home Office licence but he continued to operate his laboratory from his home on Oxford Street, in the seaside town.

People living in the street, and some surrounding properties, were told to stay away from their homes and expect a series of small controlled explosions as police, soldiers and specialist scientists moved the potentially dangerous substances from the terraced house last year.

The CPS said chemicals recovered from Meyers’s home included nitric acid, hydrogen peroxide, potassium perchlorate and potassium chlorate. An online business, believed to be connected to Meyers, claimed to supply clients including Airbus, BAE Systems, the National Space Centre, Harvey Nichols and a number of top universities. Its tagline was: “Laboratory chemicals, lab wares, photochemicals, pyrochemicals, analytics and consultancy. Fast but economical delivery.”

Speaking after Meyers was jailed for eight months, Catherine Ainsworth, from the CPS, said: “Gert Meyers was storing a number of chemicals which were potentially extremely hazardous.

“The risk was such that surrounding properties were evacuated and the Royal Logistic Corps was called in to conduct a controlled explosion, at considerable cost.”