Tweeter guilty of menace in threat to blow up airport

A trainee accountant who posted a message on Twitter threatening to blow an airport "sky high" has been found guilty of sending a menacing electronic communication.

Paul Chambers, 26, claimed he sent the Tweet to his 600 "followers" in a moment of frustration after Robin Hood Airport, in South Yorkshire, was closed by snow in January.

But a district judge at Doncaster Magistrates' Court yesterday ruled the Tweet was "of a menacing nature in the context of the times in which we live".

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Chambers was ordered to pay a 385 fine, a 15 victims surcharge and 600 costs.

The Tweet he sent in the early hours of January 6 said: "Crap! Robin Hood Airport is closed. You've got a week and a bit to get your s*** together, otherwise I'm blowing the airport sky high!"

Airport staff were alerted to the message only when off-duty manager Shaun Duffield searched for "Robin Hood Airport" using the Twitter search facility a few days after it was posted, the judge heard.

Mr Duffield told the court he was looking for a new airport Twitter page.

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He alerted airport security head Steven Armson who said he graded the threat level of the message as "non credible" but had no choice but to pass it on to police Special Branch.

The court heard the Tweet had not affected airport operations.

Chambers was arrested at his workplace, a car distribution firm in Sandtoft, near Doncaster, where he was a finance supervisor. But the court heard he had now lost his job because of the prosecution.

In the witness box at Doncaster Magistrates' Court yesterday, Chambers said he had no idea anyone at Robin Hood Airport would see the Tweet and explained how it never crossed his mind anyone might take it seriously.

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He said he had been planning to go to Belfast on January 15 to meet a woman he had met through Twitter, identified in court only by her Twitter alias "Crazy Colours".

But, the defendant said, in the early hours of the morning of January 6, he got a news alert on his phone which said various airports, including Robin Hood, had been closed by heavy snow.

Chambers said he sent his angry Tweet from his iPhone to his 600 "followers" and it did not occur to him it would also show up on the network's public time line – viewable by all Twitter users.

He said as Twitter features 600 messages a second it was unlikely anyone accessing the public time line would have seen the message "live".

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Chambers told the court: "I was disappointed and frustrated that the airport had been closed.

"My followers had been following how I was going to fly out to Northern Ireland and knew how much I was looking forward to it." He said he was just "venting his frustration".

Chambers was asked if he understood the airport had to take threats seriously, whatever the context.

He replied: "I do now. I apologise for whatever consequences have happened but at the time that was not my intention at all."

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Just minutes after walking out of the courtroom following the guilty verdict Chambers Tweeted: "I'd like to thank the CPS for their level-best efforts in ****ing up the life of an ordinary citizen. I love Britain."