Community service for hoax Intel bomb call

A former sub-contractor for Intel who asked his friend to make a hoax bomb call to the company because he did not want to go to work has been ordered to do community service.

Aaron O’Neill, 20, had been drinking and taking tablets with his friend Colin Hammond, 21, when he decided he didn’t want to turn in for work the next day.

He paid his friend to make the call from a payphone outside Hammond’s home.

The resulting 999 calls shut down a motorway, disrupted air traffic control and prevented 4,000 Intel staff from going to work.

Garda Eamonn McFadden said that at a “conservative estimate” the incident lost Intel 6,000 hours of production.

O’Neill of Chieftains Drive, Balbriggan and Hammond of Bath Road, also in Balbriggan, pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to making a false report on January 13, 2015. Neither man has previous convictions.

Hammond told the operator there were bombs located at Intel which would go off in 12 hours.

“You will not find them. This is a warning, we’re everywhere now,” Hammond told emergency services. When asked who was making the call, he replied: “Islamic State.”

Described by Judge Martin Nolan as “profoundly stupid”, Hammond claimed he had been paid to make the call. He was ordered to carry out 200 hours community service in lieu of a two-year prison sentence when his case was dealt with in October.

At a sentencing hearing last November, Judge Nolan said he saw “no reason to depart from the same sentence” for O’Neill, but adjourned the case to yesterday to get a report from the Probation Service.

Judge Melanie Greally noted yesterday there was a favourable probation report before the court.

She was informed by Paul Carroll, prosecuting, that Judge Nolan had indicated if the report was satisfactory he would order that O’Neill carry out 200 hours community service in lieu of a two-year prison sentence.