Allotment owner who drove across city with suspected wartime mortar caused full-scale alert
A spot of gardening on the slopes of Dundee Law turned into a full-scale bomb alert at Broughty Ferry police station.
Officers enforcing an exclusion zone around Broughty Ferry police station during the bomb alarm.
- Published in the Courier : 10.01.12
- Published online : 10.01.12 @ 03.39pm
Police and army bomb explosives officers cordoned off an area of Broughty Ferry after an allotment owner delivered a suspicious device to the police station.
The gardener found the suspect lump of metal on the Law while he was working on his plot shortly before 3.30pm on Sunday. Thinking it was an unexploded Second World War mortar, he put it in his car and drove across the city to the Ferry police station for inspection.
Officers quickly cordoned off Brook Street between Haldane Lane and Fort Street and called the military Explosives Ordnance Division, who were already searching for a suspect device at Tentsmuir, in Fife.
When they arrived at Broughty Ferry, however, they quickly established the suspicious object was a harmless piece of metal and took it away with them.
A police spokesman: ''A man attended at Broughty Ferry police station around 3.30pm with an extremely dirty piece of metal six inches in length and green in colour.
''The EOD attended, they established quickly it wasn't a mortar and took the item away. It appears to have been a harmless piece of metal.
''The area was secured during that time and the cordon was in place until shortly after 8pm.''
He said it was a ''false alarm with good intent''.
While the cordon was in place Tayside Police sent out messages via the force's Facebook page to reassure members of the public.
The police site administrator insisted the cordon was purely a precaution, but concerned posts from people who lived near the station expressed their anger at the potentially dangerous device being brought into a built-up area.
09.34am - 11.01.2012 Gordy - Dundee, Angus Report This
I'm amazed that someone would drive across town carrying something potentially unstable and deadly. Surely the sensible and safe option would be to leave the object and call the authorities - let the experts move it.
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