Two Irish men have pleaded guilty to making a false report after one phoned in a fake Islamic State bomb plot to police, so his friend did not have to work the next day.
Aaron O’Neill, 20 and Colin Hammond, 21, had been out drinking and “taking tablets”, when Hammond decided he did not want to work at his sub-contracted Intel job the next day, the Irish Times reported.
O’Neill then paid Mr Hammond to make an emergency call which shut down a highway, disrupted air traffic control and stopped 4,000 Intel staff from showing up for work.
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Hammond told the operator there were bombs at Intel which were to go off in 12 hours. Both pleaded guilty to making a false report.
“You will not find them. This is a warning, we’re everywhere now,” Hammond reportedly told emergency services.
When asked who was making the call, he replied: “Islamic State.”
Hammond was ordered to carry out 200 hours of community service “in lieu of a two year prison sentence when his case was dealt with in October,” according to the report.
Judge Martin Nolan said he saw “no reason to depart from the same sentence” for O’Neill but adjourned the case to January.
He said, “to put it politely” it had been a ill thought out plan and judged the men had not predicted the calls would have an affect as they did.
“It is a very, very strange way to avoid going to work,” Judge Nolan said.
Hammond earlier admitted to making the call on his friend’s behalf having said: “He hates work and I made a phone call so he wouldn’t have to go to work.”
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