Man admits to making bomb hoax in Market Square same day as Nottingham attacks vigil

A 65-year-old man has admitted making a hoax call to Nottinghamshire Police on the day of a vigil for the victims of the Nottingham attacks in June last year.

Vivian Mackay called police forces to tell them he had planted a bomb inside a tree in Old Market Square in the City centre on June 15th, reports Nottinghamshire Live.

His barrister claimed that Mackay had mixed prescription drugs with a large quantity of alcohol, and was “delirious and out of control” when he made the hoax call. Mackay “had been given a dose of morphine and co codamol and when he went home he started to drink alcohol which led to him becoming delirious. He says he does not remember the incident or the event.”.

The case has been adjourned until May while a psychiatric report is carried out ahead of the sentence being read at a later court date.

He had previously pleaded guilty to carrying out a bomb hoax and his sentence was due to be set this week at Nottingham Crown Court.

In June last year, University of Nottingham students Grace O’Malley-Kumar and Barnaby Webber, both 19, were fatally stabbed in the early hours of the morning by Valdo Calocane, who also killed 65-year-old Ian Coates after stealing his van. Having been diagnosed in 2019 with paranoid schizophrenia, Calocane was sentenced to an indefinite hospital order in January.

Judge Philip Head asked Mackay’s barrister, Emma Fielding: “Is your client a regular worshipper at his church because he has rather ostentatiously produced a crucifix to me?” Miss Fielding replied: “He does go to church, yes.

The judge said: “The defendant better stay off the bottle and maybe stay off the telephone as well. There is a real risk (for him) that this is quite simply him minimising what he has done and he has an established history of behaving in this manner, so do you want to get a doctor to say he was (as the defendant claims) ‘delirious and out of his mind’?

He has a long-standing diagnosis of anxiety and depression but he was clearly fit to plead because he pleaded.”

Miss Fielding said: “Mr Mackay says that in the case of the bomb hoax he had dislocated his shoulder and had been in hospital and had been given a dose of morphine and co codamol and when he went home he started to drink alcohol which led to him becoming delirious. He says he does not remember the incident or the event.

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