A bomb hoaxer claimed to have placed explosives in Costa Coffee – then later warned he’d planted a bomb in the Castle Quays shopping centre.

Joshua Fry 24, who has a criminal record for making hoax calls to Childline, was spared an immediate prison sentence on Wednesday (June 21).

But imposing 12 months’ imprisonment suspended for two years, Judge Michael Gledhill KC said: “I’m going to send a clear message by this sentence that anybody minded to do what you did is likely to go to prison in order to deter such hoaxes being done again.”

Prosecuting, Naomi Perry told Oxford Crown Court that Fry made two hoax calls on May 23, 2021.

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Members of staff in the security team at Castle Quay shopping centre received a message from an unknown number warning them that ‘there was a bomb inside Costa Coffee’.

The shop was searched and it was clear there was no device in the café.

In the afternoon, they received a second message from the same number. This time, the hoaxer was less specific about where they had left the bomb – saying only that it was in the Castle Quay shopping centre.

The matters were reported to the police, who tracked Fry down from the mobile number he used to text the shopping centre security team.

By the time he was arrested, he had deleted the threatening messages from his mobile.

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Ms Perry said the defendant had a previous conviction for calling Childline in 2020 and making false claims.

That conviction followed a caution in 2020 for making a series of hoax calls between May and July, ordering taxis to phantom customers, placing food deliveries to random addresses and calling Childline.

Fry, of Cope Road, Banbury, pleaded guilty at the magistrates’ court to two charges under the Malicious Communications Act.

Dana Bilan, mitigating, said her client had a ‘troubled’ past and had experienced ‘trauma’ in his childhood. A number of pre-sentence reports, including one into his mental health, characterised his tendency to make the calls as a ‘cry for help’.

He had a number of mental health difficulties and would struggle in prison, the court heard.

The barrister said that Fry planned to move away from the Banbury area to ‘start afresh’.

Oxford Mail: Joshua Fry leaves Oxford Crown Court Picture: Oxford Mail

Sentencing, Judge Gledhill said that shoppers ‘would have been terrified that someone had indeed planted a bomb that might very well go off, harming hundreds of people and must have caused great economic damage to those premises that would have been evacuated’.

He added: “This is not the first time you have done such a foolish and reckless thing.”

As part of his 12 month suspended sentence, the bomb hoaxer was ordered to do up to 45 rehabilitation activity requirement days with the probation service and pay the prosecution’s costs.