Video: Collar bomb hoaxer jailed for 13 years

 
Frank Thorne20 November 2012

A man who locked a fake bomb around the neck of a teenage girl in a bizarre extortion bid was today jailed for13 years.

Paul Peters, 52, a failed American investment banker, went to Sydney to target the beneficiaries of a trust fund. He then switched his target to a multi-millionaire businessman but chose the wrong house.

Wearing a ski mask and armed with a baseball bat, he burst into the £10 million home of Madeleine Pulver, then 18, and locked a metal box to her with a bike chain. Attached was a letter claiming the box contained plastic explosives that he could make safe if they sent funds to an email address.

Terrified Madeleine sat in the kitchen of her harbourside home in the suburb of Mosman for 10 hours as bomb disposal experts tried to disable the device in August last year. She was comforted by a policewoman who refused to leave her side until it was declared safe. Police traced Peters to Louisville, Kentucky, where he was arrested.

The judge told the Sydney district court that Peters had caused “unimaginable terror” to the teenager.

Madeleine, who was in court as the judge read out his decision, occasionally looked at Peters as her parents put their arms around her. Her father Bill, who runs a worldwide software firm, broke down in tears and was comforted by Madeleine who also wept.

Outside the court, she said she and her family could now look to the future “without Paul Peter’s name being linked to mine”, adding: “It was good to hear the judge acknowledge the trauma he has put my family and me through.” She also thanked the New South Wales police force and said she was looking forward to going to Sydney University. Peters’s barrister said his client was suffering from bipolar disorder and had an obsessive personality. Peters pleaded guilty to “aggravated breaking and entering and detaining for advantage”.

Detective Superintendent Luke Moore said it was one of the strangest cases he had worked on. He also paid tribute to Madeleine’s courage.

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