County Durham teen jailed over £1m blackmail plot

A G4S employee who sent an anonymous letter to his boss threatening to blow up vans and demanding £1m has been sentenced to 24 months. Half of that will be suspended.

Daniel Garland, 19, caused work to halt at the cash-handling depot in Thornaby, Teesside, when he posted the menacing note in January saying he had planted remotely-controlled mini-bombs'' on vehicles.

More than 100 police officers joined a major inquiry across four force areas, cash-in-transit vans were recalled to the depots to be searched and the security giant's losses were put at £15,000.

Garland, from Durham Place, Chester-le-Street, County Durham, admitted a bomb hoax charge and was convicted after a trial of a blackmail offence.

He was sentenced at Durham Crown Court by Recorder Euan Duff who told him after he was convicted: “A significant sentence is inevitable.

Assistant Chief Constable Adrian Roberts, from Cleveland Police, said: “I am pleased with the sentence handed to Mr Garland at court today. Whilst we now know that he had no intention of carrying out his threats, the letter he sent resulted in serious disruption to the G4S business, significant anxiety to its staff and necessitated a massive police operation.

“This was a clear case of blackmail – a demand for £1million was made and a series of serious threats were made in the letter to reinforce the demand. This included threats to cause explosions to company vehicles and those of employees, to attend the company depot with firearms to secure the money and to harm an employee’s partner and newborn baby. This was backed up with clear warnings around not contacting the police.

“Whilst these cases are highly unusual, the demand letter was credible, revealing detailed knowledge of company operations, employees and vehicles and, crucially, apparent knowledge of a robbery committed on a G4S cash van in the area the previous month, for which suspects had not been identified.

“Mr Garland must have known that G4S and the police would have had no option but to take radical action to secure the safety of the public and G4S employees. The G4S depot was effectively ‘locked down’ and a massive police operation was launched across four forces to simultaneously secure and search the significant number of vehicles and premises connected with the threat.

“Regardless of Mr Garland’s ultimate intention, it would have been clear to anyone making such serious threats that massive disruption would be caused to the business and that this would cause both significant concern to company employees and financial detriment to the company.

“The magnitude of Mr Garland’s offending has been recognised and I hope he now realises the scale and impact of his actions.