'Profoundly stupid' way of missing work: Employee paid friend to fake bomb threat

A former Intel sub-contractor who asked his friend to make a hoax call so he would miss work has been ordered to carry out community service.

Aaron O’Neill had been out drinking and taking tablets with his friend Colin Hammond, and didn’t want to attend work the following day. Resultantly O’Neill paid Hammond to fake a bomb threat from a payphone outside his house at 6am.  

Judge Martin Nolan said Hammond was “profoundly stupid”, as he was ordered to carry out 200 hours community service in lieu of a two-year prison sentence. He also said he saw “no reason to depart from the same sentence” for O’Neill, but adjourned the case until January so that the Probation Service could report back and see if he was suitable for community service.

Hammond told emergency services there were bombs at Intel’s office that were set to detonate in 12 hours: “You will not find them. This is a warning, we’re everywhere now.”