Bomb hoax business rival sent to prison
Bomb hoax business rival sent to prison
10:02am Thursday 15th December 2011 in News
A BUSINESSMAN from Bury who attempted to cripple a rival company by making hoax bomb calls has been jailed for six months.
Frederick Ford, of Harwood Fields, made 10 calls to Cheshire Police over a six-month period.
He claimed a bomb was about to go off at cleaning supplies company, Bliss Supplies, in Warrington.
A new phone was used and disposed of each time.
After each threat, the business, based at Alder Root Farm in Warrington and surrounding homes had to be evacuated.
Members of Alder Root Golf Club were also evacuated by officers when the calls were made between November 25 2010 and April 30 of this year.
Warrington Crown Court heard on Friday how Ford is a managing director of Centre Glass and Hygiene in Salford.
He made the fake bomb threats after two of his customers switched to Bliss Supplies.
Prosecuting, Sarah Morgan said: "He said he hoped to cause a lot of disruption to the rival company because they had taken two large orders off him."
The court heard how the threats had been made at busy times for Bliss Supplies, a family business owned by Alan Taylor. He lost £20,000 as a result.
When police searched Ford's home they found personal details of Mr Taylor's family, causing distress to his wife and two young children.
During his interview, the father-of-four said he kept tabs on other competitors in a similar fashion, Ms Morgan added.
An employee of Bliss Supplies who was present during the IRA bombing in Warrington in 1993 has since left her job because of the hoax calls.
Defending, Nick Clarke said that Ford's business had been hit by the recession.
"He never fully appreciated the ramifications of what he was doing," said Mr Clarke. "He believed the police would send out two officers and a sniffer dog.
"He could accurately be described as delusional and was astonished when arrested."
Judge Roger Dutton called the campaign 'a harebrained scheme of enormous proportions'.
He said: "The difficulty with calls of this kind are that one never actually knows the truth and they need to be investigated.
"You hold your head up as a man of respect but you have lost it all."
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