A 61-year-old man threatened to blow up Barclays Bank HQ with Semtex and cut off its credit with the Qatari Government unless they refunded money fraudulently taken from his account.
Dundee man John Driscoll, of Balerno Street, said he could easily get his hands on 200lb of Semtex and told the customer services manager at Barclays call centre he hoped he was inside the building when it blew up.
Driscoll believed he was the victim of fraud after an £89 payment had been taken from his account, leaving him £34 overdrawn.
Depute fiscal Trina Sinclair told the court Driscoll called on July 31 last year, telling them: “If I don’t have my money back in my account by tonight I’m going to go ballistic.
“I’m going to come down to Barclays Bank’s headquarters, which I think is situated somewhere near the NatWest tower, and I’m going to blow it up, whether there is anybody in it or not. Believe you me, it won’t take me a long time to get hold of 200lb of Semtex and some detonators.
“Don’t bother talking to the police about it. It’s not the bank’s money or anyone else’s, it’s my money the Government says I have to live on.
“You let my money be taken by some eejit who thinks he can raid my bank account whenever he likes.”
The customer service agent explained they could not put money into Driscoll’s account as an investigation would have to take place, but pointed out he was going to log the transaction as a fraud.
Driscoll said: “You better put the money in my account or I’m down to London tomorrow. You can tell who you like but it will happen and I hope you’re in that place when it happens.”
He added: “I’m off to Qatar next week with my brother, do you know who my brother is? He’s the vice-chancellor of Middlesbrough University and he happens to be doing a bit of business out there.
“I’ll make sure your f****** credit with the Qatari Government is f****** zilch.
“Do you know who the Driscoll Brothers are?”
The customer services manager said: “Unfortunately I don’t.”
Driscoll replied: “You’ll f****** find out.”
Ms Sinclair told the court the incident was reported to police and Driscoll was traced and arrested shortly after.
Solicitor Pamela Dobson told the court Driscoll had been monitoring his bank account and had reported the fraud to police shortly before phoning the bank.
She said: “It was not his intention to make threats but when he was told money might not be transferred back into his account he became frustrated and acted in the manner he did.”
Driscoll admitted one charge of sending a public electronic communications network message that was grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character at his home address on July 31.
Sheriff Carmichael sentenced Driscoll to 150 hours of unpaid work to be completed within six months.