An Australian gap-year student was cleared by a jury yesterday of causing chaos at Stansted airport with a hoax bomb scare, but she left court with a £15,000 bill for legal costs.
Angela Sceats, 19, from Sydney, was accused of trying to a delay a flight to Ireland which she was in danger of missing by getting a friend to ring 999 and say that there was a bomb on the plane.
The jury at Chelmsford crown court took only half an hour to accept her explanation that her request was part of a series of "stupid joke messages" texted to Angela Foster, a fellow "gapper", because she was feeling bored on the train to the airport.
"It was an extremely bad joke made in bad taste, but it was never supposed to go farther than us two," said Ms Sceats, who was working as a waitress in London at the time of the incident in November. She spent 10 days on remand in Holloway jail after three flights to Dublin were delayed and security staff considered closing Stansted.
Ms Sceats was charged with intentionally making a false communication with the deliberate aim of delaying the Ryanair flight. But she told the court: "I never even knew that Angela took the text seriously until I got to the airport and I was on the phone to her and even then I didn't really believe that she had called the police.
"She was sending me joke texts and this text was sent to her as a joke. I don't understand how she could have believed that this was a serious text message. Where did she think I got this information?"
Ms Sceats' message - "Call the police and say there is a bomb on board" - was shown to the jury, but Ms Foster, who has gone back to Australia, did not return to give evidence. The jury was told that she had immediately rung 999 from her flat in Islington, north London, after getting the text.
John Kelsey-Fry QC, for Ms Sceats, told the court after the verdict that it would be "manifestly unfair" if she had to pay her legal costs after being cleared. But the judge, Recorder Rex Bryan, disagreed on the grounds that the joke had caused disruption and fear. He said: "Had Ms Sceats been convicted she would have gone straight to prison. This sort of offence is strongly disapproved of by the public. To send a text message saying there is a bomb on an aircraft is to invite prosecution.
"The result was a waste of public resources and inconvenience, not to say fear, at Stansted airport. In this case the public should not be ordered to pay these costs."
Ms Sceats has the right of appeal, but she said after the hearing: "I just want to put this behind me. I've maintained from the moment of my arrest that this incident was an unfortunate misunderstanding. I would never intentionally cause a security alert."
Martin Wainwright
Thursday August 4, 2005
Can't say I pity her.
I mean,
They have signs EVERYFECKINGWHERE saying not to joke about such matters,
And even still you just SHOULDN'T
Because behind every joke there IS some truth.
Not saying she'd actually go do it or anything,
But if you can joke and laugh about a serious subject like that,
Then it means you're okeay and comfortable with it.
And that's when things start to get dangerous.
=\
Then again...
15,000 pounds??
That's like... 22,500$!!!!
Eeep.
I wouldn't wanna pay that.
Bet she never jokes about shyt like that ever again...
