A HUDDERSFIELD man who made two hoax bomb calls to police to get his estranged wife into trouble has been jailed.
Navid Alam had been subjecting Azma Begum to a series of threatening texts and phone calls before he rang police in July.
He told them he had information about a possible terrorist bomb being set off in Huddersfield town centre.
During the first call Alam, 25, of Cobcroft Road, Birkby, gave his wife's name as someone who might know something about the plot.
He also told the operator that she worked in the Wimpy restaurant in Cloth Hall Street.
Prosecutor Ewan McLachlan told Bradford Crown Court the call was traced to a phone box in the town centre, but by the time police arrived the caller had gone.
About half-an-hour later the police switchboard received another call in which Alam said a bomb would be set off in the Wimpy restaurant at 3pm that day.
Again the call was traced to a phone box. This time police arrived in time to catch Alam while he was still on the phone to the operator.
Alam told police at the scene: "I did it to get her into trouble."
Judge Linda Sutcliffe jailed him for a year after he admitted making the two hoax calls in July.
Alam's barrister, Elyas Patel, admitted that in the present climate the hoax bomb calls were "atrocious"'.
But he said that because Alam was caught while making the second call there had not been public evacuations or disruption.
Mr Patel added: "His wife was also spared the indignity of being investigated or, much worse, being arrested because of his atrocious and bare-faced lies about her."
Judge Sutcliffe told Alam: "Though aimed at your wife the effects were far more wide-reaching, because the public services had to steel themselves for the possibility that the first of those calls might have been true.
"It has been properly and realistically conceded on your behalf that when hoax bombs calls of this kind, talking of terrorist bomb attacks, are made, given the time and circumstances in which we live, the court has to view them very seriously indeed."
Alam, who was said to have been suffering from depression, pleaded guilty to a series of other offences and was jailed for an additional 18 months.
He also admitted a harassment charge in respect of his wife and an incident of common assault on her.
Alam also pleaded guilty to burgling an office at the Birkby ITC Learning Centre last December and stealing three cheques.
He later used them to obtain £11,500 from the centre's bank account.
Judge Sutcliffe also made an indefinite restraining order against Alam, prohibiting him from having any contact with his wife.
