back to article Moron is late for flight, calls in bomb threat

A Canadian idiot has been sentenced to a year behind bars after he was found guilty of calling in a bomb threat because he was running late for his flight. Michael Howells, 37, pleaded guilty to two counts of criminal mischief and received 12 months in jail along with a fine of CA$3,844.88 (US$3,000, £2,200). Howells was …

  1. Winkypop Silver badge
    Unhappy

    Only 1 year?

    Seems pretty light.

    I'd have thrown the flight manual at him.

    1. big_D Silver badge
      Pint

      Re: Only 1 year?

      Now that would be a heavy sentence indeed!

      1. anothercynic Silver badge

        Re: Only 1 year?

        @big_D, only if it's not an electronic flight bag! ;-)

      2. VinceH
        Coat

        Re: Only 1 year?

        "Now that would be a heavy sentence indeed!"

        Only if it's badly written and lacking in any punctuation.

    2. Eddy Ito

      Re: Only 1 year?

      Agreed, they should make him read and memorize the CARs and when he's done follow with the FARs followed by EASA and JAA regs. He doesn't get out until he writes a thesis comparing and contrasting all four.

      Oh, he should also give all the passengers a refund plus a nice dinner for their troubles.

    3. Fatman
      FAIL

      Re: Only 1 year?

      <quote>Seems pretty light.</quote>

      But, he could be put on a life long NO FLY LIST which would be the best karma possible.

      I wonder what he did for a living? Did it involve travel?

    4. cd / && rm -rf *
      Facepalm

      Re: Only 1 year?

      "I'd have thrown the flight manual at him"

      That's be a terrible waste of a nice iPad.

      (some airlines have replaced the flight manuals with iPads)

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Only 1 year?

        I thought they replaced them two iPads, in case one had a problem? Being hit with a bag containing two full sized iPads would be pretty painful punishment, and they could make the bill for their replacement part of his fine.

  2. HCV

    Canada Man

    Florida thanks you.

  3. Brian Miller
    Trollface

    Missed the flight, but ...

    He won't miss the prison bus! I imagine that prison is a familiar place for him, since he was also carrying some hard drugs. Howells' attorney opined that Howells' addiction "clouded his appreciation of the consequences" of his actions. Yeah it did, Howells was actually flying high at the time!

    Troll icon, for the Dunning-Kruger effect.

  4. frank ly
    Facepalm

    "... police traced the call to his phone."

    That tells you a lot about him.

    1. Pascal Monett Silver badge

      Re: "That tells you a lot about him"

      I think that going to an airport with drugs in the bag also says a lot about him.

    2. 2460 Something
      FAIL

      Re: "... police traced the call to his phone."

      My thought exactly. Stupid enough to do it in the first place, but even stupider to do it from his own phone. Muppet.

    3. Mutton Jeff

      Re: "... police traced the call to his phone."

      Indeed, deserves his time in Club Fed, for being so stoopid.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: "... police traced the call to his phone."

        That'd be Club Provincial, for a one year sentence.

  5. kbb

    "...charges of uttering threats..."

    I thought that was making a threat in a quiet voice. Then I looked it up. You learn something new every day.

    1. anonymous boring coward Silver badge

      Re: "...charges of uttering threats..."

      You were close: muttering

      1. Prst. V.Jeltz Silver badge

        Re: "...charges of uttering threats..."

        https://www.reference.com/government-politics/crime-uttering-2c535e5a90fc3bc7

        it dosent seem to quite fit the bill

    2. Kernel

      Re: "...charges of uttering threats..."

      "I thought that was making a threat in a quiet voice."

      It gets better - you can be charged with uttering a false document without even having opened your mouth - what a rich tradition of obscure usage lies beneath everyday English.

  6. Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
    Facepalm

    ID10T error, most definitely

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Wanted to visualise him

    So searched and got a snap on cbc.ca.

    (http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/michael-howells-bomb-threat-1.3773794)

    Note to self:

    It most be possible to look like a complete moron without wearing a baseball cap, by why bother when you can don one and save all the effort.

    1. Maty

      Re: Wanted to visualise him

      'It most be possible to look like a complete moron without wearing a baseball cap, by why bother when you can don one and save all the effort.'

      That's a heck of a slur on the 2.3 million males in British Columbia, Sir. Almost every man outside Vancouver wears one of these things whenever outside his home and they cannot decently be removed without a crowbar or the playing of the national anthem. I've seen people with baseball caps eating at 5-star restaurants.

      Incidentally, have you seen the headgear they make you wear while you receive a P.hD?

    2. Juan Inamillion

      Re: Wanted to visualise him

      Is that a parking warden accompanying him?

  8. Uncle Slacky Silver badge
    Stop

    Don't wanna be a Canadian idiot...

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjLQ6uCw2g8

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Joke

    heroin and methamphetamine

    I thought passengers and crew did coke.

    Arent they thundering along huge white lines on every runway??

    Very bad joke alert, sorry people, I had a bad night.

    1. This post has been deleted by its author

      1. Swarthy

        Re: heroin and methamphetamine

        Why not just Ride the Dragon?

  10. Donchik

    £2200?

    Seems a disproportionally small fine considering the cost incurred by airlines, the airport, police and security, and of course the thousands of non-idiot passengers who will have incurred their own costs, if only in time and inconvenience!

    1. Anonymous Coward
      FAIL

      Re: £2200?

      He's an addict...no point fining someone a million if they don't have any money.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: £2200?

      Besides, he'll only steal the money to pay the fine anyway.

      IF he doesnt spend it on more drugs first.

      1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

        Re: £2200?

        ...apart from which, doesn't the fine go into the government coffers anyway? Now, if he also has to pay additional costs or compensation, that might be another matter.

  11. Korev Silver badge
    1. EddieD

      Re: This is a real fine

      Aye, but she only got a suspended sentence, no actual jail time.

      1. This post has been deleted by its author

    2. allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

      Re: This is a real fine

      Note to self: don't mess with the Swiss!

      Driver faces $1,000,000 speeding fine

    3. d3vy

      Re: This is a real fine

      "That level of fines seems much more of a deterrent."

      Yeah, for those that can *at a push* afford it, people who are either very rich or very poor will not care a bit if you give them a £100k fine, for the rich its pennies and they wont notice it, for the poor its such an inordinate amount that they will never *EVER* be able to repay it - so wont even try - you try and extract £100k from someone who owns nothing... see how that goes.

      Given that the guy was a drug user (or at least that was part of his defense) I imagine that the fine that he was given was proportional to his means - i.e He will be able to repay it, but it will be a massive inconvenience.

      1. Jelder

        Re: This is a real fine

        From memory the fines were based on your income, to make it reasonably painful for both the wealth and the not-so-wealthy. Hence if you are super-rich and get caught speeding the fine can be...significant.

        On the plus side, the local police donut fund is in good shape.

  12. FuzzyWuzzys
    Facepalm

    FFS!

    "...police traced the call to his phone."

    If you're going to cause a major panic, at least do it so that it cannot be traced back to you! The spell in clinky is to give the rest of the human genepool a chance to improve a little without this dildo "pissing in the pool"!

    1. Marlboro Lights

      Re: FFS!

      He was/is a heroin and meth addict, I doubt he had the foresight or acumen to think of using a burner phone.

      What would you do if you were late for a flight? Forget about it and book another like most other folks probably.

      1. Nunyabiznes

        Re: FFS!

        And it's not like there are payphones on every street corner like there used to be. I can think of only one in all of my little town.

  13. Stevie

    Bah!

    A bit of a twat, eh?

  14. ZeroDrop

    Oh yes, there are big MORONS in the world.

    A moron because of what he did, a moron because how he did, and a moron because of doing all of this while carrying heroin and meth.

    I almost can't believe in such stupidity.

  15. Mike Moyle

    I'm confused (Not that that is an unusual state for me, mind you).

    "...received 12 months in jail along with a fine of CA$3,844.88 (US$3,000, £2,200)."

    $3,844.88 seems like an awfully precise arbitrary fine. I mean, this was a Canadian court, fining a Canadian resident for a crime that happened in Canada and yet the court selects a fine amount which (apparently, at that day's exchange rate) rounds nicely to a US dollar amount -- the which monetary system should have no bearing in the court. The only times that I've seen that sort of precisely-specified, non-rounded fine were when the victim's actual losses were calculated and a round number penalty was added on top of that. That, though, does't explain the nicely-rounded-to-the-nearest-thousand-in-US-dollars nature of the fine.

    Something doesn't add up (Sorry!), or something got mis-reported, or I'm just missing something blindingly obvious.

    1. allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

      Re: I'm confused (Not that that is an unusual state for me, mind you).

      Off the top of my head... since hardly anyone actually researches stories themselves my guess is:

      - story is reported with fine stated in CA$

      - story is picked up someplace else and reported, amount of fine is converted into other currency and rounded

      - story is picked up again, converted, rounded amount is converted back to CA$, this time without rounding...

    2. Roger Kynaston

      Re: I'm confused (Not that that is an unusual state for me, mind you).

      I think our friendly Reg hack may have done a bit of rounding. Just checked with a search giant's conversion thingy and CA$3844.88 converts to £2254.46. I can't be bothered to do the same for greenbacks.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: I'm confused (Not that that is an unusual state for me, mind you).

      These fines are usually something like:

      fine + costs + contribution to victims of crime fund, and don't come out in even numbers. There could be an interest component as well.

  16. Primus Secundus Tertius

    Messing people about

    OK, he messed about with the airline, and the other passengers.

    But they mess us about when it suits them. Let's see airlines punishes for overbooking, mislaying luggage, general delays, ...

  17. JaitcH
    Unhappy

    NOT One Of Your World Travellers

    Ignoring the fact that cell handsets can be traced, or most airport lines are recorded, it is common practice amongst many air carriers that late arrivals, etc. are NOT boarded following a bomb, or other threat.

    Kelowna is a city in the Okanagan Valley, in the south of Canada’s British Columbia. It’s somewhat being on a remote shore of Okanagan Lake, surrounded by provincial parks, pine forest, vineyards, orchards and mountains.

    If they put the guy on a No Fly list, he would have a long way to drive ... anywhere!

  18. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    A proper punishment

    Have him stand there and take a kick in the nuts from the other passengers inconvenienced by his stupidity. Better than gaol or a fine.

  19. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Could have been a lot worse

    Some airlines, if you piss them off can bar you not only from using their services but any other cooperating airline. Sort of like a no-fly list but more of a gentlemen's agreement between normally competing companies to prohibit certain named individuals from booking a flight.

    In some cases they even blacklist the MAC addresses of the individual's digital devices so they can't even get an Internet connection on the premises.

    Caveat: sometimes you can still book a flight if you ask them nicely and apologize personally, and have waited a year or two to allow the offense to "expire".

    A similar agreement exists for ferry companies, getting on their list can be as simple as using the toilets "incorrectly", leaving a mess on seats and other seemingly minor offenses like complaining about their slow/canceled service online. This should be illegal FWIW but the Govt looks the other way because some services operate below cost "loss leader" especially in the quiet season.

  20. Matt Bryant Silver badge
    Facepalm

    Lol!

    Another example to wheel out when someone insists drugs aren't harmful.

  21. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Re. Lol!

    (insert citation needed here)

    Also, this is a well known phenomenon, a few years back someone got in trouble for a Robin Hood related Tweet.

    I did notice that some new passports made after 2013 have a slightly different chip that no longer reads at all on an NFC reader, seems that the "fix" modifies the code so that it only draws power until it gets a specific challenge then responds with its 21 digit code and 4 entropy digits (to prevent cloning)...

    1. Daniel B.

      Re: Re. Lol!

      Not quite the same thing. The Robin Hood tweet was a joke, and anyone reading it would've understood it as a joke. Instead, the UK cops made a gigantic shitstorm out of it.

      This Canadian bloke, however, made a real (albeit bogus) threat.

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