EXPLOSIVE: Drunken bomb hoax at Anglia Ruskin

Joshua Berrabah, 23, called the police stating that “terrorists” had planted two bombs at Anglia Ruskin University as a drunken hoax. The false tip-off provoked a large police response team,  including firearms officers and a sniffer dog unit. 

Berrabah made the call whilst drunk, pretending to be Jack Bauer from the TV show ’24’.

Saying he was part of the counter-terrorism unit, he claimed, according to prosecutor Caroline Allison, “Britain was under terrorist attack,” and that he was “first responder on site.”

He continued to claim that two bombs had been planted, and described one bomb as “waste-like and set on its side,” and the other as a “wallet type iPhone device.”

He went on to claim he was being pursued by seven people, but couldn’t give a description of them for fear of being shot.

It was a pretty good show…

Berrabah was promptly arrested over the hoax, found whilst “drunk and disorderly” whilst tempting to climb over a fence into St Matthew’s school near the university.

He  pled guilty to communicating false information about a bomb threat. He was given an 8 month prison sentence at Cambridge Crown Court on Wednesday. The sentence was suspended for 18 months, but he has also been ordered to do 250 hours of unpaid work.

Berrabah claimed he was “upset and embarrassed” when the phone call was played back to him.

Judge Haworth warned: “It has to be clear that anyone that makes a hoax call of this nature will face a prison sentence.”