A FIFE woman who made hoax bomb threats to Edinburgh and Glasgow airports was jailed for three years at Dunfermline Sheriff Court yesterday.

Lorna Jamieson (37), a prisoner at Cornton Vale, drunkenly told call-handlers a bomb would go off in minutes.

Sheriff Ian Dunbar said he had no alternative but to send Jamieson to custody because she posed a potential nuisance to the public.

Depute fiscal John Keir said Jamieson phoned British Airports Authority’s business support centre in Glasgow, which handles calls for Edinburgh and Glasgow airports, in the early hours of July 5 last year.

“An airport information officer on duty at the BAA business support centre in Glasgow answered a call intended for Glasgow Airport,” he said.

“It was a female caller, who sounded drunk.”

Jamieson told the employee, “There’s a bomb in the … rubbish in the … airport.”

The airport manager treated the call as a hoax and decided there was no need to evacuate or carry out a search.

Later the same day, the centre took a call intended for Edinburgh Airport.

Again Jamieson, sounding drunk, said she had planted a bomb.

She said, “I swear to God I’ll come back and I’ll put it off myself, do you hear me? I’m telling you now, you’d better get it checked out.”

Staff were told the bomb would go off within 10 minutes.

As a result, the airport and baggage area were searched and police patrolled the premises.

A similar incident happened on August 4 last year, when a call handler at the business support centre picked up a call for Glasgow Airport.

On this occasion, Jamieson said, “You better listen, listen good.

“See your escalators on the … bottom, I’ve planted a … bomb and you better … listen.

“I’ve just been in the airport and I’ve planted the bomb.”

The call had been recorded and a police officer recognised the accused’s voice from a previous incident.

However because of the nature of the threat, a search of the airport was carried out.

Again, management decided not to evacuate the building.

Jamieson admitted a further charge of contacting Glasgow Airport’s lost property office with a hoax bomb threat on June 17 this year.

When a member of staff checked the answering machine in the morning there was a message from Jamieson.

Jamieson had said, “See you at lost property, there’s a … big bomb and you’ve got five minutes to … find it.

“Ha ha, have a nice…life.”

Mr Keir said, “The duty manager carried out a threat assessment and decided against evacuating the airport.

“At that time he decided the bomb threat should be treated as a hoax but there was a search, as they really have to, to see if there was anything lying about that was suspicious.”

When confronted by police, Jamieson admitted making the calls and when the content of the messages was put to her she said, “Seems like something I would say.”

Jamieson also pled guilty to contacting Fife Constabulary headquarters and falsely telling them there was a disturbance at Primmer Place in Cowdenbeath, to the annoyance and inconvenience of police, on July 5 last year.

She admitted possessing a knife in Cowdenbeath’s Stenhouse Street on July 9 this year.

The court heard she was found with the kitchen knife, which had a four-inch blade, while slumped against a wall sniffing glue from a plastic bag.

Defence agent Andrew Robb said Jamieson was a self-harmer with a personality disorder.

Referring to the knife he said, “It was plainly an item which she was going to use to harm herself, if anyone.”

He added that she had “caused considerable harm to herself” while on remand and “the public interest would not be served by locking her up.”

Mr Robb said it would have been obvious the bomb threats were hoaxes and her voice on one of the recorded messages had “a comic book air about it.”

However Sheriff Dunbar said he had no choice but to consider a jail term, considering Jamieson already had 125 convictions, including knife possession, wilful fire-raising and one under the Firearms Act.

He told Jamieson, “I accept that you have had a difficult life and that you present a very serious risk of doing serious harm to yourself.

“But given the nature of the offences and the fact they have gone on for a period of time, the sentence has to reflect that.”