A school pupil who sent a letter claiming to contain the poison ricin to Prince William has been sentenced to three years detention. Paul Smith, 17, from Dumbarton, also sent a bottle of aromatherapy oil laced with caustic soda to Cherie Blair. The High Court in Edinburgh heard that he sent the packages after being "groomed" over the internet by the head of an anti-English Scottish terrorist organisation.
A what?
| Aye, laddie! 'Tis Osama McLaden! |
Lord Kingarth told Smith: "You became involved in a sinister and sustained campaign which was calculated to cause and did cause considerable distress and alarm to a number of people and a very considerable disruption." The sixth-year pupil at Dumbarton Academy admitted sending letters containing a powder, which he claimed was either anthrax or ricin, to various people and organisations. He was aged 15 when he sent 44 letters between August 2001 and February last year as a hoax. Edgar Prais QC, defending, said his client had been ordered to send the packages by the head of an anti-English Scottish terrorist organisation, which cannot be named for legal reasons.
I did a Google search and couldn’t find one, either.
| Hah! Shoulda searched Rantburg. The group's the Scottish National Liberation Army (SNLA)... |
Smith was sentenced to spend three years in a young offenders’ institution, with a 12-month supervision order on his release. |