Dundee man who stockpiled chemicals and bomb making instructions sparked mass evacuation

A man who stockpiled chemicals and bomb making instructions before calling police and telling them he was going to blow up staff at businesses he had a dispute is today behind bars.

Patrick McCabe sparked a mass evacuation and forced the bomb squad to carry out a series of controlled explosions at his flat in Dundee following the incident on December 5 last year.

McCabe phoned up Dundee's police control centre around 11pm and told a call handler he was ex-SAS and had "purchased electrical compoonents, a digital soldering iron and a book on improvised explosives, ammunition and guns".

He said he was in a dispute with a bank and a telecommunications company and that police had not taken his complaints about them seriously.

As a result he planned to find out where staff at the two institutions parked their cars before planting bombs underneath their vehicles.

Fiscal depute Eilidh Robertson told Dundee Sheriff Court that police attended his flat in Dundee's Fairbairn Street - which runs along the back of the George Fox stand at Dundee's Tannadice stadium - and found chemicals stashed in his freezer.

Scientists who later analysed the find said they could have been used to create a bomb if further chemicals had been added to them.

McCabe, 65, a prisoner at HMP Perth, pleaded guilty on indictment to a change of threatening and abusive behaviour at a flat in Fairbairn Street, Dundee, on December 5 last year.

Defence solicitor John Boyle said: "He accepts that the period in custody - though not of his choosing - has been of some assistance for him.

"He is receiving help and medication while in there."

Sheriff Alastair Brown deferred sentence until April 10 for social work background reports and remanded McCabe in custody meantime.

He said: "From his point of view I'm not sure custody is the right place for him.

"From the public's point of view, I can't think of anywhere else.